The Pekingese (Pekingese Dog, Pekingese Lion Dog) or Pekig Lion Dog (Peking Palasthund, Lion Dog, Sun Dog, Foo Dog, Fu Lin Dog, Chinese Lion Dog, Peke, Pelchie Dog) is an ancient companion dog that originated in the Western China. It is unknown how this breed came into being (its true ancestors are still unknown), but supposedly it is more than 2.000 years old. According to the Chinese (Buddhist) legend, this dog is an offspring of a union between a monkey/marmoset (representing grace) and a lion (representing nobleness). Of course, this is far away from the actual truth, but it’s still an interesting story. Namely, the lion fell in love with a lovely monkey girl, but he couldn’t marry her since he was much bigger than her. So, the lion asked Buddha to make him smaller. And so it was, Buddha fulfilled his wish, they were married and had a bunch of Pekingese babies. How sweet :) Anyhow, the recent DNA study confirmed that the Lion Dog is one of the oldest and purest dog breeds in the world. That’s why this toy doggy is included in the group of 14 ancient breeds, together with the Siberian Husky, Alaskan Malamute, Chow Chow, Shar-Pei, Shih Tzu, Saluki, etc. These dogs are also the closest relatives of the wolf, which is not something you might have guessed after the actual look of the Peking Lion Dog. Continue Reading →