68o The Dog Book 



play with on that account. This reputation followed them to this country 

 and for a year or two after 1880, there was so much talk about them as 

 being prone to "develop" rabies that no entries of Pomeranians would be 

 accepted at the New York show. It is so seldom that we see any of these 

 large Pomeranians at the present time that it is unnecessary to say more 

 about them and a good idea of what they were a century ago is shown 

 in the Gainsborough painting of Mrs. Robinson. Such a dog is shown in 

 the painting by Stubbs of which the quaint old gamekeeper and his 

 peculiar setter, given in the English setter chapter, form a part. 



The toy Pomeranian includes dogs from 10 pounds down to about 5 

 pounds, but in these very diminutive specimens there is a tendency to 

 develop the round or apple-headed skull which is too much a fault to be 

 counter-balanced by the small size. Flatness of skull is something which 

 should be more generally recognised as a requisite and then let size come in 

 as desirable. 



In speaking of these small Pomeranians as more entitled to be called 

 Italian even if bred throughout Western Europe it is worth while mentioning 

 that Youatt calls them Italian or Pomeranian. Blaine does not mention 

 the breed by either name quoting the Buffon title of Loup-Loup, which was 

 the large dog, the sheep dog. It is not improbable that stray specimens of 

 the small dog may have been brought to England years ago, but as we have 

 said it was not until Queen Victoria brought Marco from Florence that the 

 variety became at all known. There was then a rush to get the new dog and 

 they speedily became the fashion in toys. In 1891 the Pomeranian Club of 

 England was formed and this added zest to the fancy so that two years 

 later at the Ladies' Kennel Association show in London there were 322 

 entries of Pomeranians alone, the actual dogs being well over one hundred. 



American fanciers were not slow in getting some of the new breed and 

 in 1899 the first of them were shown, the best display being at the Pet Dog 

 Show where Mrs. Smyth of Germantown and Mrs. Williamson of New 

 York showed some particularly nice dogs. Mrs. Avis and Mrs. Senn also 

 exhibited at this show, and they are still exhibiting. Mr. Coombs was 

 another early member of the fancy and he has shown some good whites 

 for quite a number of years. The late Mr. Stedman and Mrs. Stedman 

 were also very enthusiastic exhibitors and took great pride in their home- 

 bred dogs. Mrs. Render, wife of Mr. Stedman's business partner has also 

 had a few good ones. We do not seem to have progressed to any great ex- 



