The Highly Esteemed Japanese Chin makes it Way to Britain and America

The Japanese Chin was very fortunate to be held in such high esteem in Japan. This was not the case with many other dogs in Japan during the 1800's. One writer, Griffis, wrote in the Corea: the Hermit Nation (1882) that "in Japan, dogs are held in very little honor except the `chin' or Japanese Spaniel."

Earlier views were expressed by another writer, Robert Fortune. He wrote: "The street dogs appear to be the same breed as the common Chinese dog, and both have probably sprung from the same stock. On a warm summer afternoon these animals may be seen lying at full length in the public highway, apparently sound asleep; it was not unusual for our attendants to whip and kick them out of our road in a most unceremonious way. On many of them, the marks of the sharp sword of the yakoneens were plainly visible, and everything tended to show that, if the dogs were regarded as sacred by some, the feeling fails to secure them from being cruelly ill-treated by the common people. It was not unusual to meet with wretched specimens in a half-starved condition and covered with loathsome disease."

Read on at: About Toy Dogs