Working Vs. Companion
Breed groups argue that any dog of a working dog type is inherently a working dog, while many say that only a dog being actively worked, either in a related field such as water trials for retrievers or herding trials for herding dogs, or in some other field that requires training and discipline, such as being assistance dogs or participating in dog agility, can be considered a working dog.
Dogs that have been chosen for traits that make a convenient pet are generally smaller breeds, and the tradition of keeping pretty dogs for no purpose other than to be court decorations stems back thousands of years to Chinese nobility. The Pekingese and the Pug are both examples of canines chosen for their ability to be pets. In the case of the Pekingese, it was for their lion-like demeanor; for the Pugs, it was for their "lucky" wrinkles and their monkey-like face.
Other dogs that appear to be strictly a decorative or entertaining toy type of dog originally had jobs, such as the Lhasa Apso's job as a watch dog, or the delicate Yorkshire Terrier's exceptional rat catching abilities.
Read more about this topic: Companion Dog
Famous quotes containing the words working and/or companion:
“For human nature, being more highly pitched, selved, and distinctive than anything in the world, can have been developed, evolved, condensed, from the vastness of the world not anyhow or by the working of common powers but only by one of finer or higher pitch and determination than itself.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“My companion and I, having a minute’s discussion on some point of ancient history, were amused by the attitude which the Indian, who could not tell what we were talking about, assumed. He constituted himself umpire, and, judging by our air and gesture, he very seriously remarked from time to time, “you beat,” or “he beat.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)