The Story Of The Shih Tzu Breed

During the last few years there has been a lot of talk about the need for keeping the work abilities of several breeds of dogs. With that particular goal in mind, the Newfoundland club organizes water trials and draft tests for numerous dog breeds and the Dalmatian club has events on horseback in order to prove the stamina of the breed. For the for the sporting dogs and beagles, the American Kennel Club has hunting tests and trials, herding tests and trials for herding dogs and Samoyeds and many tests for terriers. In order to prove the endurance, intelligence and the guardian ability of their dogs, the people who have German Shepherds or Rottweilers get their dogs into Schutzhund trials. These specially bred dogs go into the trials without any preparation in advance. They just do the natural things they were born to do.

But this is not the way things are for smaller breeds. These dogs are companions, which have been developed and bred as pets. There are no such events for the small dogs, as the training it takes to make them up to a competition would be too exhausting for them.

The Shih Tzu is one of these little ones. He never stops amazing people with its joy of life and this is why no other dog in his group gets more attention than the Shih Tzu.

The history of the Shih Tzu takes us back to Tibet's "lion dogs," an exclusive group of dogs bred by Buddhist monks, many centuries before the times of the Chinese emperors of the Manchu Dynasty from the middle of the 19th Century. In 1850, the monks sent several of their temple dogs to the Manchu emperors in Peking. It was the Chinese who called these dogs Tibetan Shih Tzu Kou or Tibetan Lion Dog. The main purpose of breeding these dogs was the pleasure of the emperors. At their palaces, there were three different types of dogs, depending on the length of their coat.

Nobody knows how, but the Shih Tzu managed to find its way to England in the 20th century. It was originally called "Apsos", but Shih Tzu was soon considered to be a separate breed by the the Kennel Club. The American soldiers stationed in England during World War II were charmed by the little dogs, so they took some back home in the United States. This is how they got to be spread all over the world!