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ORIENTAL DOGS – NOT ALWAYS WISELY BRED
By David Hancock

When, as a teenaged kennel boy, I worked for my local vet, I remember two comments he made about Chinese dogs, neither of them complimentary. He told me that the unhealthiest breed he ever had to treat, down the many years he had in a mainly small animal practice, was the Pug. The second comment was just as worrying: he had only been bitten twice by dogs in his many years of handling dogs – and both times by a Chow-chow. Both these breeds originated in China. Many years later, when in Hong Kong and visiting the central market I spotted a cage full of heavily-wrinkled pups and asked a passing policeman what breed they were. He replied “They’re Chinese Boxers – used for fighting”. They were my first sighting of the breed of Chinese Shar Pei, long before their importation into the UK. A colonial officer in South East Asia a year or so later told me of railway wagons on the Korean-Chinese border being loaded with what he described as ‘smooth-haired Chows’ being conveyed to Korea for food – as food for humans that is!

Such a collection of comments, whether unfair or unrepresentative, do influence your thinking. My ‘thinking’ was also affected by going to the Natural History Museum at Tring and seeing a stuffed ‘Happa Dog’ which seemed to embrace every serious anatomical fault you could find in any breed of domestic dog. I remembered the words of Beck and Katcher as quoted in James Serpell’s The Domestic Dog of 1995: "By moulding dogs to fit our own curious notions of canine beauty, we condemn many of them to chronic pain or ill-health through the propagation of inherited physical disorders (Wolfensohn, 1981). In various ways we also limit their ability to lead normal lives. By altering their height, the carriage of their ears and tail, and the length of their fur we prevent them from communicating effectively with each other. And although we indulge them in some respects, will still deny them the freedom to express much of their natural behaviour.” I think of these words whenever I see at British dog shows the delicate, vulnerable-looking breed called the Chinese Crested Dog or the short-nosed, profusely-coated Shih Tzu.

But there are oriental dogs that can earn our admiration. I can recall the time when I was commanding an ambush in the Malayan jungle, miles and miles from the nearest kampong when, ignoring us through keenness to follow animal scents, a local breed known as the Telomion, went through our position as though we didn’t exist. I recall too the admiration of a European sportsman, when based in China, for the Chinese breed of Hah-see, because of their all-round skills in detecting and tracking game. He also rated the Japanese hunting breeds, not known in the west: the Shikoku, the Kishu and the Kai. He had hunted too a wide variety of ground game in Thailand, using two types of local breeds, one with a ridged back and the other just called the Thai Hound. That was many years ago, but more recently Alison Darley in Wales has imported some Chinese hounds called Chuandong Hounds and they are immediately impressive. She has chosen her stock, now grown from 5 to twenty, very carefully and deserves to succeed with them. Importing a new breed can be a form of torture! But my old vet-employer would have been impressed by their physical soundness and the sportsman who used both Chinese and Japanese hounds would have liked the determined look in their eyes.

I understand that the Chuandong Hound is the rural foundling of the Chinese Chongqing Dog (a very similar sister breed but more French Bulldog-like), a city dog from Sichuan, whose DNA tests reveal links to the Tibetan Mastiff, the Chow-chow and street dogs from Thailand, Vietnam and Southern China. I see resemblances to the Thai street dogs and the recognised breed of Thai Ridgeback. Desmond Morris, in his Dogs – a dictionary of dog breeds (Ebury Press, 2001) wrote of the Phu Quoc Dog, (linking it with the Thai Ridgeback – the island of Phu Quoc once belonged to Thailand) used to hunt wild boar in packs but as scent hounds not ‘seizers’, i.e. to locate their quarry, not to seize it by the ear, as some European dogs were bred to do. Morris described the Phu Quoc as a reddish-brown, ridged breed, with a black tail-tip, black nails, a sword-like tail and a dark ‘snout’-very similar to the Chuandong Hound. The Phu Quoc may merge with the Thai Ridgeback, as the kennel clubs recognise their origin. Morris also lists the Chinese Greyhound, more ‘big Whippet’ than our Greyhound’s size, but interestingly featured in depictions of hounds from long ago in China, one by a court painter and likely to be accurate. The hunting dogs of the steppe warriors resembled the sighthounds of the west. Some were used with the hawk, rather like Salukis in Arabia.

Hounds wherever they originate need the anatomy that allows them to hunt and the fixed determination to succeed in the hunt. That determination is often revealed through their gaze – hence the old description of some of them as ‘gazehounds’. The intense focus required by all-purpose hounds is usually revealed in their head position, intense concentration and utter determination in their eyes. The Balinese Mountain Hound is valued for its long-sight, able to spot game in the valleys below its extended gaze. The Shiba Inu of Japan needs keen hearing and fast reactions to close ground game to earn its keep. The Matagi Akita in Japan was used as a bear hound and needed stature and immense dash to perform in the hunting field. For any breed of dog to have the word ‘hound’ in its breed title puts an onus on breeders to honour past function, which shaped the breed, and produce dogs that can function as hounds. This not only pays tribute to their origin and development but also decides their form.

(Further information on the Chuandong Hound can be obtained from: www.chuandonghound.co.uk)