CHAPTER IV 

 SPORTING AND GUARD DOGS 



THIS heading is intended to include all breeds which 

 are not toy-dogs. No breed can be said to exist in 

 the East, as in Europe, for the special use of the 

 amateur sportsman. Game is captured for the sake of food, 

 and the element of sport, though attractive to the Chinese 

 and Japanese hunter, is a minor incentive. Consequently, 

 the term " sporting " is here applied to all dogs used in the 

 capture of game, and includes the chow, the greyhound, and 

 the wolf-hound. It may be contended that this classification 

 is no great improvement on that of the " Book of Rites." As a 

 matter of fact, no such classification can be perfect, for 

 dogs closely allied to the type which has become fixed in 

 England under the name of " chow " are used in China for 

 the hunting of deer, the shooting of pheasants, as guard dogs, 

 for the production of furs, for edible purposes, and as sledge 

 dogs. Numerically, this race is probably the most important 

 in the world. Extreme poverty of the people, and increasing 

 difficulty of maintenance, has weakened this most democratic 

 of all dog races, and caused it to deteriorate, but throughout 

 China there is a distinct resemblance to the chow in the 

 miscellaneous unclassified local breeds. 



Laufer figures nine relief-bands on vases of the Han dynasty, 

 connected with hunting scenes, the representation of which 

 had become conventional at this period. The quarry is in 

 several cases the wild boar, " well characterized by its short, 

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