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There has always
been controversy about the origin of the Pug. It is probably better to face
facts from the outset and admit that practically nothing is known of how, when
or why the short-faced, smooth-coated and curly-tailed dogs that we now call
Pugs came into existence. There is, however, very little doubt about where they
came from, and that is China. There is good reason to believe that all the
short-faced breeds, with the notable exception of the Bulldog and the collateral
members of his family, originated in the Orient.
Two fallacies should be decently but finally buried,
the first being the belief that Pugs descend from and have become a pygmyized
type of Mastiff. This idea probably arose from the fact that the earliest Pugs
to arrive in England were sometimes referred to as Dutch Mastiffs. The only real
point of similarity between the Mastiff and the fawn Pug is in colour and coat.
The structure of the skulls of the two breeds varies enormously and this is
quite enough to show that it is most improbable that the Pug has any connection
with the huge Molossus, known to the Phoenicians, from whom the Mastiff, the
medieval Alaunt and the Bulldog descend.
A standing pug dog with glass
eyes, next to a tree trunk shaped receptacle for tobacco. Circa 1860-80
Um
pug com olhos de vidro, perto de uma arvore que serve de porta tabaco. 1860-80
The second misunderstanding is that the short face of
the Pug was originally brought about by crushing or damaging the nasal bones in
puppyhood. Obviously an operation of this sort would only affect the subject and
not its descendants. Selective breeding is nothing new and has been practised
for one reason or another for centuries.
A very nice pair of pugs-marked Germany on
the side of the base-slight difference in size-appear to be male and female.
Each carries a basket with pug puppies. 1900
Short-nosed dogs seem to have been known in China many
years before the Christian era, since short-mouthed dogs are mentioned
by Confucius (b. 551 B.C.). Records from the first century A.D. mention dogs,
referred to as Pai, which translated appears to mean a short-legged and
short-headed dog whose place was under the table. From this period onwards a
number of the Emperors appear to have taken an interest in small dogs -often at
the expense of their imperial duties.
Foo dog
The only way in which we can get any idea of the
appearance of Chinese dogs is from drawings and scrolls. These, like most of
Oriental works of art, are extremely stylized, but it appears that three main
types of small dog were flavoured -the Lion Dog, The Pekingese and the Lo-Sze,
and it is the latter from whom our European Pugs seem to descend. Pictures show
the Lo-sze as not unlike the Pekingese except that its coat was short and close
and the tail was without feathering. The colours varied and most dogs were
parti-coloured.
Americans Lo-Sze Pugg Dogs
Lo-Sze Pugg dog
(photo
Rebecca Manns)
The chief physical requirements for a Lo-sze were that
it should be as small as possible, that the coat should be short and the skin
very elastic, whilst it was essential that it should bear the Prince
mark -this was three wrinkles on the forehead and a vertical bar, thus forming
the Chinese character for Prince; a white button or blaze on the
forehead was much favoured. A compact body, good bones and a flat face as well
as a square jaw were all valued, and although many of the dogs had their tails
docked, the curled tail as well as the double curl were all known and
permissible. The ears, compared by a writer to the half of a dried apricot,
were set slightly more to the side of the skull than those of the Pekingese and
other kindred breeds.
Statuette en porcelaine de
Strasbourg représentant un chien doguin assis sur un tertre rectangulaire, décor
polychrome au naturel.
Marqué deux fois PH en creux.
Vers 1752-1754. XVIIIe siècle.
There is nothing very mysterious about the migration of
small Oriental dogs to the countries of the West. There has been trade in silk
and other merchandise between China and the Western world as early as the time
of the Han dynasty (200 years B.C.). Trade relations with Portugal were opened
in 1516, with Spain in 1575, and with the Dutch in 1604. Peter the Great sent an
embassy to the court of the Emperor K'ang Hsi (1662-1723), and it is recorded
that the Chinese envoy who was sent to welcome the Russian ambassador was
greatly interested in dogs and hounds, several of which accompagnied the
ambassador, and one or two were accepted as gifts by the envoy.
On a more matter-of-fact level there is no doubt that
the sailors of Portugal and Spain would have been well aware that the ladies of
their native lands would offer a very ready market for small dogs of a novel
breed.
The earliest-known reference to a dog that may well
have been the forerunner of the Pug confirms the belief that western Europe knew
the Lo-sze before it was seen in Russia.
The story of this little dog, who saved the life of William
the Silent, and thus altered the history of Europe, is a classic in Pug
history and appears in Sir Roger William's Actions in the Low Countries,
published in 1618, and refers to an incident that must have taken place between
1571 and 1573. The occasion was a surprise Spanish attack on the Dutch camp. The
little dog in question, whose name is believed to have been Pompey,
awakened his master before any of his men by scratching, crying, and leaping on
his face.
Although the dog is described as a white little
hounde it can reasonably be thought, from other parts of its description,
that it actually was an ancestor of the modern Pug.
We can therefore establish with reasonable certainity
that small, short-faced dogs existed in China; could have travelled from the
East to the West in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and there was good
reason for their popularity at the Court of William the Silent and his
successors. It is possible that it was at this period that careful and selective
breeding changed the somewhat long-bodied Lo-sze into the cobbier dog
that eventually took the name of Pug.
During the hundred years which intervened between the
reign of William the Silent and the arrival in England of his great-grandson
nothing is heard of the Pug except that they were always around the Dutch court.
During the latter years of the seventeenth century we
find signs of Pug infiltration into many European countries -France, Italy,
Saxony and many of the German states.
Originally known in Holland as Mopshond, in
France as Doguin and frequently in England as Dutch Mastiffs, there is
no certainity as to how or why the name of Pug came into use in this country.
However, the words pug, pugg and pugge were
frequently used as terms of affection, and there are many instances of its use.
The word may have some derivation from Puck, since it was usually used
to indicate impishness or mischief. Pug was a term often applied to the small
monkeys so popular as pets in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and no
doubt the flat-nosed and mischievious little dogs had something in common, both
in appearance and behaviour, with little monkeys.
William and Mary brought Pugs to England when they
arrived in 1688. These were probably the personal pets of themselves and their
suite. It was no long before English courtiers and their kindred not only fell
in love with the little newcomers but found the possession of one a convenient
way of expressing their approval of their new monarchs.
In the years that followed, the Pug and the flamboyant
black page-boy became the essential appendages of a lady of fashion. The vogue
for Pugs continued throughout the eighteenth century, reaching its peak at the
time of George III.
Painters have often left us a useful record of the
appearance of the dogs of their period, but until the nineteenth century we have
little visual evidence of this kind of the appearance of Pugs. The exception, of
course, is the work of Hogarth, who himself was a Pug owner.
 
The frequent mention of Pugs being brought to England
from Russia and the implication that many good specimens were
bred there, and that they were sold very cheaply in the markets, probably had
some foundation, but there is no real evidence to support the belief.
The popularity of the Pug in central Europe
can be deduced from the number of china and porcelain figures of Pugs that
emerged from the factories -particularly at Meissen. When the German Freemasons
were excommunicated by the Pope in 1736 they continued underground activities
under the nom de guerre of 'Mopsorden' or the Order of Pugs.
A book published in 1789 mentions twice Pugs in Italy.
In France the Pug was known as the
Carlin since the early eighteenth-century. Carlin was an actor who was
renowned in the role of Harlequin, and the title probably refers to the black
mask worn by both player and Pug. Joséphine Buonaparte was undoubtedly
infatuated with her Pug Fortuné, and he certainly appears to have been
dangerously entêté [headstrong].
Strangely enough we have very little evidence of the
popularity of the Pug in Spain or Portugal,
although it may well have been seamen and traders of those nations to whom we
are indebted for the earlier Pug arrivals from the Orient.
In the first few decades of the nineteenth century the
popularity of the Pug undoubtedly declined. It seems that there may have been
several causes to which one can attribute the Pug's eclipse. Not only has
fashion always been a fickle jade but Pug themselves seem to have deteriorated
both in constitution and in appearance. There appear to have been some
experimental crosses of Pugs with Bulldogs, mainly in attempts to pygmyize the
Bulldog; quite likely some of these cross-breeds were sold as Pugs. From one
cause of another it would seem that the Pug was in danger of losing its typical
black mask whilst his coat was often coarse or woolly. In other words, many Pugs
had lost their most attractive physical features -the black mask and the short,
close and shining coat. The 'rough coated Pugs' that caused something of a
sensation et the end of the century were probably throwbacks to a cross-bred
ancestor born some eighty or ninety years before.
Nevertheless, since the competitive exhibition of dogs
did not commence until the middle of the century, the small matter of a Pug's
points are not likely to have had a serious effect on the public's regard for
the breed, and one must assume that, in addition to changing fashion, Pug
character, intelligence and temperament must have been at a low ebb at that
time.
Goya - La Marchesa de Pontejos
The Pug never stays in the outer darkness of
unpopularity for long and the revival of interest in the breed quite logically
coincided with the great upsurge of enthusiasm for dogs and their breeding which
started in the middle years of the nineteenth century. After the banning of
bullbaiting (1835) a certain tough element were looking for some way of
displaying the superiority of their dogs. By 1859 dog-shows and competitions
attracted considerable numbers of dog-owning men -the rough, the tough and the
really sporting types, and there was plenty of room for sharp practice and
roguery. Pedigrees, when existing, were seldom trustable until the Kennel Club
(founded in 1873) made some effort to record a dog's pedigree and his winnings.
This resulted in a first Stud Book which recorded the winners and their
pedigrees at shows held between 1859 and 1874. Some sixty-odd Pugs are listed in
this volume.
The Kennel Club's sphere of influence increased with
the years as it legislated for the ever-increasing number of dog-shows and
field-trials over which it assumed control. With the increasing respectability
of dog-shows, women exhibitors became more common which made possible the return
to public favour of breeds like the Pug.
Two strains appear to have dominated the first half of
the nineteenth century. The earliest was the Morrison. This strain is said to be
founded on the blood of royal dogs, presumably those of Queen Charlotte, wife of
George III. The other prominent strain was that of Lord and Lady Willoughby
d'Eresby. Here imported blood (from Russia or Hungary) was employed to bring
about the badly needed improvement in type. The dog bred by Mr Morrison and the
Willoughby d'Eresby were of greatest importance from the years 1840 onwards.
Even today it is quite usual to speak of a Willoughby Pug or a Morrison,
thus implying that it is either of the cold, fawn colour of the first-named
strain or of the more golden apricot shades of those bred by Mr Morrison.
The next, and perhaps the most important, infusion of
fresh blood came from China. Lamb and Moss are said to
have been captured in the Emperor of China's Palace in the 1860's and then
brought to England (a story which much resembles the account of the looting of
the Pekingese from the Summer Palace in 1860!). These two dogs were the parents
of Click, who was to become one of the most important Pugs in
the whole history of the breed and one whose influence was just as great, if not
greater, in the United States than it was in England.
The Pug Club was founded in 1883 and it soon laid down
a standard of points for the breed. In 1886 black Pugs first began to be taken
seriously. There had certainly been black Pugs before then. They had cropped up
from time to time in litters of fawn puppies but had usually been popped into a
bucket without delay. One or two little black sports seem to have escaped a
watery end, for Hogarth, always a lover of Pugs, painted one in The House of
Cards, ca 1730. It is also known that the Queen Victoria had owned a black
Pug who was heavily marked with white. This dog may have come from China and it
is certain that the closer a dog or bitch was to Oriental ancestry the greater
the likelihood of it producing black offspring.
By the closing years of the nineteenth century the
popularity of the Pug was on decline once more. The breed's rivals were firstly
the Pomeranians who then gave way to the Pekingese. Anyone studying the history
of the Pug cannot fail to be struck by the numerous rises and falls in its
popularity, but the breed has been lucky in that it has always retained
sufficient enthusiastic breeders who have maintained good typical and sturdy
stock, so that even when the Pug breed is numerically weak it retains its type
and temperament.
There is no exact record of the year when Pugs first
landed in the United States, but twenty-four were exhibited at New York in 1879,
although only five appeared later that year at the Philadelphia Kennel Club
Show. Pugs seem to have aroused several storms in the American show-ring but the
breed steadily forged away.
A Derby figure of a Gallant playing with a
Pug.
c.1775
A Pair of Derby Pugs.
c.1775-80
Enamel snuffbox 18°sec
Silver Pugs
A pair of Lowestoft pug dogs
seated on rectangular canted bases, their bodies sponged in a manganese ground,
the deep under-glaze-blue collars have studs in the front and bows at the back.
Their eyes are also picked out in a dark under-glaze blue. Circa 1775-80. No
mark; both with fully glazed bases and holes in each. Height: 3 ¼ ins. 8.2 cms.
Provenance: The Margaret Cadman Collection.
Circa 1920, Italy. A charming pair
of pugs!
Old Cards
Cigarettes box
Bibliography: "The
Pug", by Susan Graham Weall
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