H2 THE POMERANIAN 



in the production of several beautiful colours un- 

 known thirty or forty years ago. Some of our best 

 authorities deplore the craze for diminutiveness, hold- 

 ing that true Pom. character is being ruined. Mr. 

 Stanley Mappin, writing in the official organ of the 

 Kennel Club in 1907, said : " There has been 

 general improvement all round. A better type has 

 been shown, and the rage for the diminutive, badly 

 conditioned little weeds has given place to a 

 demand for a sturdier, heavier, and better type of 

 dog altogether, breeders having gradually grasped 

 the fact that the best judges will not recognise such 

 undesirable weaklings, and that the only way to 

 obtain the correct type is to breed from healthy 

 bitches of sound constitution, with a weight of not 

 less than 5 Ib. I strongly advise those whom it 

 concerns to have nothing to do with breeding from 

 the under -sized weaklings, who only perpetuate a 

 type which is even worse than that of their pro- 

 genitors . Good judges, and all who have the welfare 

 of the breed at heart, do not care a single jot about 

 size, and a good dog is not now handicappeid because 

 he weighs j t lb\ It may be said without fear of 

 contradiction that in the majority of cases the 

 smaller the dog, in similar proportion do his points 

 deteriorate : bad head, with too prominent eyes, soft, 

 flat coat, long back, unsoundness in legs, and the 

 texture of coat except in the case of the ' over 

 8 Ib.' dog being far too soft, so that in the 

 diminutive show cripples it becomes more like silk 

 than hair." 



At a meeting of the Kennel Club Committee in 

 April, 1909, it was decided to subdivide the variety 

 into : Pomeranians dogs over 7 Ib. in weight, pre- 



