Looking at the Splendid Oriental Chow Chow, one sees an arrestingly beautiful animal.
What catches the eye is his perfect balance, the compact body and the proud, lion-like head.
His striking personality and character, his aristocratic bearing, his dignified manners and his lordly scowl make him unlike any other dog.
Friendly, yet some how reserved, he asks only to be loved and socialized by his family and friends.
He is indeed an Oriental "gentleman," the lord of the canines, the Emperor of Dogs. And he is unique
The Chow Chow, often simply called the Chow, is one of the oldest breeds. His exact history is lost in the China of antiquity. Some historians record that the Tarters invaded China a thousand years before Christ and brought back to the West some middle-sized dogs that looked like "lions" with blue-black tongues.
The Chow as it is known today is easily recognizable in pottery and sculptures of the Chinese Han Dynasty (206 B.C. to 22 A.D.); other artifacts indicate that he was even a much older breed and that he may have come originally from the Arctic Circle, migrating to Mongolia, Siberia and China. Some scholars claim that the Chow was the original ancestor of the Samoyed, the Norwegian Elkhound, the Pomeranian and the Keeshond.
In more recent times, that is, in the T'ang Dynasty (7th Century A.D.), it is reported that one Chinese emperor kept something like 2,500 of these "Chow Dogs" as hunting and sporting animals to accompany his ten thousand hunters!
Admired by emperors as well as by Western royalty, used by Chinese peasants for food and clothing,. and adopted as a "favorite" of the movie star set in Hollywood in the 1920's, the Chow Chow has had a dramatic history.