DOGS OF CHINA AND JAPAN 



on account of the length and shagginess of its coat. The 

 Chinese readily apply the name to any long-coated dog, 

 whether native or foreign, large or small. Ramsay says that 

 in Tibet these dogs are called "lags k'yi" (hand dogs) ? 

 " because it is believed that, if a human being lays hands 

 upon a young eagle when freshly hatched, the bird is trans- 

 formed into a dog of the Chinese pug breed." * 



That the Tibetans should have selected their small lion 

 dogs, and in accordance with the universal custom should have 

 sent them as curiosities and presents to the Manchu scholar 

 Emperors Ch'ien Lung, K'ang Hsi, and other sovereigns, 

 as a flattering rerninder of the Lamaist association of the 

 Dynastic name with Manjusri, the god of learning, habitually 

 accompanied by a small pet dog capable of being transformed 

 into a mighty lion as his steed, seems perfectly natural. There 

 is evidence that the compliment was acted on in the spirit in 

 which it was given, for the palace eunuchs state that the 

 Emperors were continually followed by their small dogs, and 

 that their entrance to audiences was often announced by the 

 barking of the accompanying dogs a signal for all servants 

 to hide themselves, or at least to avert their faces. 



It is not known when the Tibetan Lamas began to send 

 to the Manchus small Tibetan " shock '" or lion-dogs, the 

 earliest English representation of which appears in Mr. 

 Bryan Hodgson's " Drawings of Nepalese Animals." The 

 custom possibly existed in the early period of the Manchu 

 Dynasty, founded in 1583. It ceased in 1908, when the 

 Dalai Lama visited the Empress Dowager and presented her 

 with several specimens, which were seen by foreigners who 

 describe them as having been very similar to the breed of 

 lion-dogs then existing in Peking, and known by living 

 testimony to have existed there for at least forty years 



* " Western Tibet," Lahore, 1890, pp. 33, 35. 

 l82 



