The Chow 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.
It is known today is easily recognizable in pottery and sculptures of the Chinese Han Dynasty 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. In more recent times, that is, in the T’ang Dynasty, 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!
i love ‘em. i got one named Maximus :)
