19th Century Chinese Dogs

In "Off the Wall" today, I wrote "Why Chinese Dogs are Shy." I'm not the first to write about Chinese dogs. Here are comments about Chinese dogs from the 1880s and 1890s.

Shore, 1881, Flight of the Lapwing, pp. 34, 35
"The only members of the community who showed any resentment to our advances were the dogs, wretched mangy brutes, which infest all Chinese dwellings, and arrant cowards. They seem to have an instinctive dread of Europeans, and scent them a long way off; one has only to bend down as if for a stone and the curs are off like the wind."

Davis, Rev. J.A., “The Young Mandarin; a Story of Chinese Life” Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society, Boston and Chicago, 1896 p. 147,148

"The street dog, however, if stories regarding him are true, is the genius and fool in the Chinese animal world. Though born pretty, his hard life makes him a homely brute before a year passes; and he continues to grow more and more ugly in looks while life lasts. Fortunately, for other reasons, too, he is not long-lived. His color in early days may be black or white, yellow or brown; in a year or two it changes to the standard - shaded dirt. His hair, that in youth gives him the appearance of a wolf or coyote, is sacrificed in battles, and scars appear instead. Peaceable by nature, he is born for war, and fights for his living. If he have a master, he learns the fact rather through kicks and blows than caresses and kindness. Owned or ownerless, he must find his own food or prove himself unworthy a place among the living. Of course some receive better treatment at the hands of masters; the description applies to the vast majority.

"The dog of the street is not an unmixed evil, for he is the city scavenger. He never deserts his post unless driven away; never shirks his duty; never goes on a strike; always hungry, usually starving, he allows no food to waste, nothing eatable to decay. Without him epidemics might be far more common than now; yet his only reward comes in kicks and curses. It is said, in some places, the writer has reason to believe with truth, that the street dogs have a government of their own, and each brute knows his place and keeps it. Certainly it was almost impossible to coax, very difficult to force, a dog beyond certain limits in the city of Amoy years ago. And woe to the dog out of his beat! He must run, fight, or die; occasionally one was compelled to do each in turn. If forced a few blocks from home the brutes, bold enough before, became cowardly, and made desperate efforts to return."

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