The future of domestic dogs is at serious risk due to an extremely aggressive new retrovirus. Despite scientists having found a vaccine that can cure the disease, it seems that there is only enough to cure one pregnant mother and her puppies. This poses an important ethical dilemma, since researchers are convinced that they must choose a breed of dog to be saved. Considering this from the Occidental point of view, dogs are our equals and our ethics tells us that the right thing to do would be saving all dogs regardless of their origin. Thus, making any decision that favors one specific dog would be unjust towards the rest.
We would need more information about the retroviral vaccine and pregnancy stage of the mother, but it seems that only her and her pups will survive and they will be the original ancestors of all future dogs to come. Considering this situation, the mother and her pups face a grim future, since the next reasonable step would be to exploit them by keeping them constantly pregnant via artificial insemination in order to increase the gene pool and avoid a genetic bottleneck that would only postpone the extinction of dogs for a few more generations. Thus, trying to save a specific dog breed would not be a good solution, since we would need as much genetic diversity as possible.
Another fact that we should take into consideration is that viruses evolve as well. Viruses are interested in their own survival, and must keep a balance between mortality and efficiency to infect other organisms. If a virus kills its host too soon, it will have less chances of coming into contact with other potential hosts to infect them and ensure its survival. That is the reason why it is possible that dogs and viruses may reach a balance between them and both will survive without human interference, the virus by becoming less virulent, and the dogs maybe by arising mutations that confer them more resistance.
Still, if the virus maintains its virulence and dogs are doomed to go extinct unless a vaccinated pregnant dog saves them, I would choose a stray dog to be that savior. Stray dogs often have no definite breed, which would be important for avoiding genetic bottleneck. As well, stray dogs are often forgotten by society because people tend to prefer pure breeds.
By choosing a stray dog, the new generations of dogs would be composed of completely different and unique individuals. Humanity would amend all the damage it has caused on dog breeds via artificial selection, such as the respiratory distress that current pugs suffer on a daily basis. And hopefully people would no longer discriminate dogs by their appearance, and these kind animals would finally be treated as the companions that humans started domesticating thousands of years ago, instead of being used as symbols of status by some people.
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