An overview of the Lo-sze

Author's Note:

If you're familiar at all with my work, you may recognise the following excerpts as belonging to a wider "master document" that I've been working on steadily in my free time. I do plan to publish it in it's entirety on this blog, but the project is currently unfinished- and I would prefer to wait until it's polished before fully releasing it onto the internet. I'm also constantly learning new things, so I'm certain some of the information I've included will be discarded by the final draft. I've had to rework several sections already, which I consider a good sign when you're striving for total accuracy.  

If you'd like to see the segment on the pug's Chinese ancestry in it's entirety, you can find the link in the pinned posts of my public Facebook group: "Pug history". Alternatively, I'm able to be reached via the email Pughistorian@gmail.com. Thank you!

The Lo-Sze: 

The name Lo-chiang-Sze, likely derived from the city of Lochiang, explicitly refers to a short coated dog that can be considered the ancient pug type. It was used in areas of Western China around 900 B.C and was later shortened to simply “Lo-Sze”, which is the name that persists today.

The exact relationship between the Pai dog, one of the earliest recorded small breeds in China, and the Lo-sze is unclear. Some consider the Pai the “prototype” that would go on to form later varieties of lap dog and others hypothesise they are one in the same. Due to the gaps missing in ancient records, it’s unlikely we’ll ever find evidence solid enough to settle this dispute. Nonetheless, it can be inferred that the Lo-sze is the dog imported by Dutch traders in the 16th Century that would be used to create the pug. 

Real life photographs depicting Lo-sze dogs are almost unfathomably rare. In fact, the above picture may be the only one we have for reference. Unfortunately it doesn’t offer us much in terms of detail. The heavy shadowing of his face obscures any defining features and his true height or length cannot possibly be gauged whilst he’s seated. I’ve even speculated as to whether he’s a Lo-sze at all, or just a similarly built breed that was misidentified. 

This ambiguity means we must rely almost wholly on the written accounts of the time, as well as imperial art, to form a clearer idea of what the Lo-sze typically looked like. In “Dogs of China & Japan in Nature and Art” Collier remarks that the Lo-sze had a greater “elasticity of skin” as compared to their closely related cousin, the pekingese. Chinese breeders sought after wrinkling of the face and a white spot marking on the forehead, producing cobby dogs probably similar in stature to the pug with a slight bending at the elbow.

The rarest type of Lo-sze was known as “loong chua”, meaning “dragon claw”. Collier describes this type as possessing feathering uncharacteristic of the standard smooth coated variety; long hair present on the ears, toes, tail and legs. The loong chua Lo-sze supposedly went extinct some time around 1870, if Collier's account of events is accurate. 

Peculiarly, most European artwork of the early pug illustrates a rather odd looking animal with an ear carriage more typical of that seen in spaniels. At a first glance, it’s easily mistaken for an early form of the Cavalier King Charles, or perhaps an archaic strain of hound. 

This oddity could be dismissed as the result of foreign genes being introduced into the pool, had it not been for the few depictions of “spaniel eared” Lo-sze that can be found in Chinese artwork. Whilst not particularly common, it lends credence to the idea that the trait was present in at least a small subset of the population for a period of time.

1686-1766

1686-1766

That being said- the over-representation of long eared pugs during the 17th century was no doubt a byproduct of mixing Lo-sze dogs with native European breeds. Pugs from the 16-1700s varied wildly in appearance; no two specimens looked the same and they came in all colours, shapes and sizes. They were not produced with the ideals of rigidity and uniformity that are commonplace today, nor were breeders of old concerned with maintaining a population “pure” in blood. 

Widespread hybridization is what would spearhead the formation of the pug dog as its own, genetically distinct, breed- the classification of which is muddled by confusion. Because, whilst it’s not uncommon for people to hail the pug as a Chinese invention, in truth it was by the hand of the Europeans that this type would arise. Haplotype analysis reveals that the modern variety is more closely related to the pomeranian and papillon than it is the shih-tzu or pekingese. By as early as the 18th century, the pug’s western blood far outweighed any traces of Lo-sze that remained.

In the 1940s, China would undergo a revolution that subsequently led to the Communist Party seizing control in 1947. The ensuing financial difficulties and raised taxes on dog ownership made them unobtainable to only a select wealthy few. Populations of native Chinese dogs would suffer as a result of this decision and by 1949 their breeding was banned entirely. 

Some breeds, such as the Shar Pei, would survive this period up until Chairman Mao’s death in 1976 where attitudes towards dogs as pets would begin to change. Unfortunately, the Lo-sze and the Happa did not and are now considered extinct despite efforts to resurrect the former in the 1990s. This reconstruction is known as the “American Lo-sze Pugg” (™) and isn’t recognised by the AKC- although it is accepted by the International Rare Breed Dog Club. Whether this project is still ongoing is hard to ascertain. Most information available online is very obviously outdated and nobody involved seems to have a substantial social media presence.

An American Lo-sze pugg (date unknown).