This dog is listed as a “Pekingese spaniel” in The Windsor Magazine (1898). His name was Little Billee and belonged to the Princess of Wales. In 1898, that was Alexandra of Denmark– who was much better known for Japanese chin or “Japanese spaniels” when she became queen consort to Edward VII. This dog looks more like a chin than a Peke, so I wonder if its classification is correct.
The discussion of this little dog makes things a little less clear, for it mentions the “Japanese spaniels” in the same paragraph:
China also sends us the pretty toy Pekinese spaniel, the pet dog of the Chinese ladies, and one not usually destined for the butcher’s shop. “Little Billee” is owned by the Princess of Wales, and for shape, markings, length of ear, and “feather” on the legs, is about as good a specimen as could be found anywhere. They weigh from about three to seven pounds, and make delightful little pets,whilst their smart appearance, is only beaten by that of their near neighbours, the black and white “sleeve dogs” of Japan, or, as we term them, Japanese spaniels. When the latter first arrived in this country they were known as Japanese pugs, but this was so clearly a misnomer that the name was soon dropped, and they are now rightly classed as toy spaniels. Those dogs are carried by the Japanese women in the long sleeves of their kimonos, so that the smaller they are the better. The big ones, so often seen in this country, arc merely the refuse of the’Japanese breeders, who sell them to the stewards of the ships trading between Europe and the far East, who pass them on at a large profit to persons here who are blissfully ignorant of their many faults.
The term “spaniel” is not correct for either Pekes or chin, but they do have some affinity with the brachycephalic toy spaniels that we Americans call “English toy spaniels.” These Far Eastern breeds have a very different ancestry from the toy spaniels, although one would generally not be surprised if the Japanese chin or the Peke may have played some role in fully establishing the brachycephalic feature in these dogs. Ironically, “pug” is a much better name for these dogs than “spaniel.”
Many of the earliest imported Pekes were quite small in size. Even today, I’ve encountered the term “sleeve Pekingese” to denote a much smaller than normal Peke. These earlier dogs often had longer legs that one normally finds on a Pekingese today.
So it is possible that this dog was a Pekingese.
But it looks so much like a Japanese that I wonder if the dog was misidentified.
Alexandra would later become very much established in “Japanese spaniels,” which looked very similar to this dog. Those Japanese spaniels were clear black and whites, but this dog appears to be some variant of black and tan tricolor. But that color also exists in modern Japanese chin.
So this dog could have been either a Pekingese or a Japanese chin.
I am certain that historians in both breeds have looked at Little Billee and have claimed him.
I am too uncertain to give a definite answer.
A third breed is added to Little Billee’s identity:
http://books.google.com/books?id=9QIPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA262&dq=alexandra+little+billee+dog&hl=en&ei=Y4bQTcWMGM6ugQej5-HKDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=alexandra%20little%20billee%20dog&f=false
“Thibet spaniel”– Tibetan spaniel.
There is a photo at this url of Queen Alexandra’s Pekingese and two Chin. – http://www.thepekingeseclubofamerica.com/The%20Pekingese%20and%20The%20Happa%20Dog,%20with%20photos.pdf –
The Pekingese looks much like Billie and could be mistaken for a Chin, and it is mentioned that “the distinction between these two breeds is not as clearly defined as it is today”.
The Japanese dogs were much more widely exported after Perry “opened up” Japan. Pekes were a rarity of all rarities. A total novelty dog. So one might claim that an imported dog from Japan is a Peke, just to add value to it. In the US, the “Japanese spaniel” was quite common in the early days of our fancy.
I knew that historians in both breeds would claim him.
He may have been either.
I have yet to read anything convincing me of either identity, and the fact that he’s also called a spaniel from Thibet makes me even more cautious. The so-called Tibetan spaniel is of this type, but it is more similar to a Peke with far less exaggerated features than a Chin. And this dog looks almost exactly like a tricolor chin.
I believe those two “Japanese spaniels” of Alexandra’s were Punch and Facey.
Not only were the early imported Pekes quite small, they were also longer in the leg.
Indeed, he may have been either, or he may have had a bit of each in him. This is from Toy Dogs and Their Ancestors. . . . . “It is quite evident to me that three-fourths of the Pekingese shown in England are thoroughly degenerate. That these are largely manufactured to suit the market is undoubted, and I once received an open advertisement from one of these manufacturers, of a “Toy Spaniel bitch, suitable for breeding Japanese or Pekingese”! I took the trouble to investigate this, and found a curious kind of ” Spaniel,” which resembled nothing I have ever seen before or ever hope to see again. The owner asked, I think, ten guineas, and assured me that she had had two litters, one of Japs and one of Pekingese, which had sold for enormous sums to exhibitors, each puppy fetching from fifteen guineas upwards.”
That sounds about right.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this dog were just a Japanese chin/English toy spaniel cross that was palmed off as a rare Peking palace dog or a “Tibetan spaniel.”
Kind of like the African hairless dogs and the Chinese hairless dogs that all derive from xoloitzcuintli. It’s all marketing.
These short-faced toy dogs are all variations on a theme, just as are the retrievers and many other interbred or closely related breeds/varieties. By the way, there’s a photo of a Happa dog in that 1915 book on dogs at the World’s Fair.
Wow, everybody here is saying what I believe. I am NOT alone in my belief! It feels good to have kin in belief.
I’d love for the flat faced spaniels to be shown seperately like they are now, but registered and breedable as varieties of one breed. What chance of that? Is it like wanting snow in July?
That way dog breeders could choose what outcrosses they would like.