The Pug. 409 



burden to itself and a cause of discomfort to the owner. Nothing 

 does so well for house dogs as plain biscuits, dry bread, or well 

 boiled oatmeal porridge, varied with a few scraps of meat from the 

 stock pot, a little gravy, and boiled green vegetables, such as cabbage, 

 turnips, and carrots, and occasionally large rough bones to gnaw and 

 play with, and smaller ones to crunch and eat. 



Before proceeding to give a detailed description and value of each 

 point, I think it will be very useful to reproduce here in a condensed 

 form a correspondence from the columns of the " Country," which created 

 very considerable interest at the time, everyone of the writers being pug 

 breeders, and most of them successful exhibitors. The writer, to open 

 the ball, was Mr. Theodore Marples, and I think I cannot do better than 

 let each writer speak for her and himself, omitting matter in the letters 

 which had merely a passing or personal interest : 



"As an admirer of this breed of dog, which is nowadays one of, if 

 not the, most fashionable canine appendage to the drawing room, 1 

 venture to make a few observations as to their points. I have pro- 

 cured many opinions on the pug, including ' Stonehenge,' ' Idstone,' 

 Mayhew, &c., who differ little as to the essential points requisite in 

 a ' perfect specimen.' I have attended many of our shows in various 

 parts of the country, but have failed to discover the type of dog 

 required, there being such a discrepancy in the decisions at shows. 

 One judge seems to favour one dog and another judge prefers another, 

 and in many instances, I will not say all, they seem to ignore alto- 

 gether the points as laid down by the authors before named. At one 

 show you will see a big dog, with a turned-up tail, not the ' curl, ' 

 win ; at another, one with a long muzzle and leggy, or a black face 

 and the coat all ' smutty,' instead of a distinct trace. Now, I 

 think, and have no doubt most of the fancy will bear me out, that 

 what I may term the modern pug should, in the first place, be ' small ' 

 being a toy, the smaller the better. I adopt myself the standard 

 weight of 121b., and if a little less all the better ; but I contend if 

 they are much over that it is a fault, and should be looked upon 

 as such. They should also be low on leg, with short round body, 

 well ribbed up ; shortness of muzzle also is a very important point, 

 but how few you see really good in this respect. It is easy to 

 breed them the other way, the head to be rather large and lofty, or 



