Mrs. R. Laurenz with her two Lhassa Terriers “Mei Mei,” Bitch (left) and “Mo’er,” Dog (right). Above photo taken in China in 1930.
influential people outside the palace. After her death, while China was in turmoil, foreign diplomats were able to acquire dogs that were said to have come from the palace where they had been carefully bred and cared for by eunuchs for many years, but only one that was actually born in the palace made it to the West. The long-haired dogs had many names at this time of which “Lhasa Terrier” or “Apso” seemed to be more common. These names point to the fact that they were considered to have been imported from Tibet instead of having origi- nated in China, but considering the ef- forts of eunuchs at breeding to please the empress, one cannot consider them to be purebred in any sense of the word. There was a Peking Kennel Club in the late thirties which actually held dog shows where the long-haired dogs were entered. However, the judge complained that the lack of uniformity among the dogs, albeit they all had short muzzles, long hair, and tails car- ried high over the back, made judging them quite difficult if not impossible. We owe the appearance of the Shih Tzu of today to the few Europeans who managed to obtain what they con- sidered good specimens of the shaggy dogs and successfully brought them back to Europe. Once the dogs got to Scandinavia and England, efforts were made to draw up an official Standard for the breed
and to come up with a name more be- fitting to its heritage. The English set- tled on “Shih Tzu,” the Chinese word for lion, and Scandinavia followed suit. Unfortunately, early Shih Tzu that were imported into the United States were often referred to as Apso, and so, were registered as Lhasa Apso, which led to the Shih Tzu languishing for many years in the Miscellaneous Class because of the confusion, as well as the possibility that some of today’s Lhasa Apsos have Shih Tzu ancestors and vice versa. These early breeders were faced with a major un- dertaking; stabilizing a type of dog that they really were not very familiar with. Although there were a few peo- ple still living who had seen the dogs while in the Imperial Palace, their descriptions were not specific enough to be a blueprint. Being in agreement that the dogs were small, short-faced and long-haired helped, but the fact that the early exports out of China were sometimes overshot in bite, high in the rear, and varied greatly in size meant a lot of work had to be done to standardize the breed. Size has al- ways been a point of disagreement. In the early years, the Scandinavian Shih Tzu were noticeably smaller than those in England, probably due to the specimens each importer brought home from China and many years of inbreeding into those lines. Although they both agreed upon a
weight of nine to sixteen pounds, the English breeders wanted a more sub- stantial dog, one with good bone and body, while the Scandinavians want- ed a more elegant dog befitting a royal palace. Continual inbreeding from a very small pool of genes resulted in the Scandinavian dogs not only be- ing smaller but, according to a well- respected English breeder-historian, also gave them a more retiring dispo- sition. World War II interrupted the development of the breed, but once it was over, both groups put great effort into reaching a concurrence of opin- ion on what the Shih Tzu should look like, importing from each other to broaden the gene pool. The one point never in question was that Shih Tzu were extremely devoted to humans, loving all they met, showing their self-confidence by holding their heads high in balance with an equally high, arched tail. In the early 1950s, an English Peking- ese breeder who acquired some Shih Tzu decided they were in need of help in regard to body, bone, and pigment. So, she bred one of her Shih Tzu to one of her Pekingese with the bless- ing of the English Kennel Club, but definitely without the blessing of the other Shih Tzu breeders. The uproar that followed lasted for quite some time, but the fact that many of these Shih Tzu breeders eventually incor- porated dogs descended from this
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