The Pug. 407 



realm fills the country with rubbish. It is quite certain there are far 

 more puppies of this and other breeds born than ought to be allowed 

 to live. Many are so weak in vitality that they are sure, if they live 

 at all to grow up diseased and weedy, and a majority are so wanting 

 in the essential qualities of the breed that no one with a real desive 

 to improve our dogs would think of rearing them. But such dogs are 

 reared and bred from, on account of a supposed value attaching to their 

 pedigrees, and so faults are propagated and confirmed. 



Much has been written on the origin of the pug, but I have been 

 able to discover nothing authentic all seems to be merely conjecture. 

 One writer says we first obtained the pug from Muscovy, and that he 

 is an undoubted native of that country. Another that he is native 

 to Holland ; whilst others assert the pug to be a cross between our 

 English bulldog and the small Dane. 



I merely state these theories without adopting any of them, and I 

 have not one of my own to offer. Of whatever country he is a native 

 he is, I think, clearly an import to this, and although his breeding 

 was for a time so neglected that he was nearly lost to us, we can 

 still boast of having the best in the world. 



The pug is widely distributed ; a dog nearly akin to him is met with 

 in China and Japan, he is well known in Eussia, a favourite in 

 Germany, plentiful in Holland and Belgium, and common enough in 

 France. 



From the date of his resuscitation in this country his history is 

 much clearer, and, by the aid of the stud books and other means, 

 will be kept so. In the last edition of " Dogs of the British Islands," 

 " Stonehenge " states, and no doubt on the best authority, that in the 

 decade 1840-50, among other breeders who attempted to bring the breed 

 up to its former distinguished position in this country, foremost and 

 most successful was the then Lady Willoughby d'Eresby, who succeeded 

 by crossing a dog obtained in Vienna with a bitch of a strong fawn 

 colour imported from Holland, and afterwards, by careful selection in 

 breeding from their stock, in establishing the now celebrated Willoughby 

 strain. The same excellent authority states the pale coloured Morrison 

 strain to be lineally descended from a stock in the possession of Queen 

 Charlotte, and through them no doubt to inherit the blood of the 

 favourites of Dutch William ; the late Mr. Morrison having, it is 



