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.”

Robert Fortune also wrote his views of the Japanese ‘sleeve dog’: “The lapdogs of the country are highly prized both by natives and by foreigners. They are small – some not more than nine or ten inches in length. They are remarkable for their snub noses and sunken eyes, and are certainly more curious than beautiful.” Robert Fortune also wrote: “they command high prices even amongst the Japanese; and are dwarfed; it is said, by the use of saki – a spirit to which their owners are particularly partial.”

It was not until the mid-19th century that dog fanciers of the West became interested in the Japanese Spaniel, nowadays called the Japanese Chin. The continuation of trade with Japan by both the U.S. and Britain meant many specimens of the Japanese Chin found their way to the West.

At the very earliest British dog shows in 1862 a class was provided for the Japanese. Records tell us there nine entries. The class was won by Mr. C. Keller’s black and white dog, Caro.

Miss Elizabeth Brown of Bayswater, London was an early Japanese Chin breeder and fancier, although as far as records tell us, she never exhibited. Her first dogs arrived in England in 1870. They were described as “unsurpassable for their tininess, luster of eye or silkiness of coat.” In Japanese terms they had:

• Butterfly head
• Sacred-vulture feathered feet
• And chrysanthemum tails.

These two lived to be nine years old and left Miss Brown with one Chin daughter she called, Lady Dorothea.

One of the very first Englishmen to own and exhibit the Japanese Chin was Theo Marples. His Japanese Chin, Ming Seng was reported to have been imported with a cargo of tea. He was black and white, with a protruding tongue. Marples claimed he weighed nine pounds, although others claimed he weighed 12 pounds in weight.

Ming Seng won the Gold Medal at Crystal Palace for the ‘Best Foreign Dog.’ The medal was presented to him by the Revd G.F. Hodgson, who was known as an authority on the Japanese Chin at time.

The first recorded prize winner Japanese Chin historians can find was Captain Anderson’s The Japanese Rose. She was a prize winner at the 1865 Islington Dog Show in London.

Early American Dogs

A few Japanese Chins were entered in the New York Show of 1877 and ten entered in the same event in 1882. One writer, Kurt Unkelbac, author of The American Dog Book, contends that the Japanese Chin arrived in the USA from Japan before it went to England. The first Japanese Chin was registered with the AKC in 1888.

The Japanese Chin was first recognized at the New York Bench Show under the auspices of Westminster Kennel Club on March 8, 9 and 10, 1877. It is shown in the catalogue for that show three Japanese Spaniels entered.

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