A lapdog or lap dog is a dog that is both small enough to be held in the arms or lie comfortably on a person's lap and temperamentally predisposed to do so. Lapdogs are not a specific breed, but is a generic term for a type of dog of small size and friendly disposition.
Lapdogs historically were kept in many societies around the world by individuals with leisure time, as docile companion animals with no working function. Genetic analysis reveals that lapdogs are among the earliest specific types of dogs to live with people. Today, most lapdog breeds fall into the Toy breed group.
Read more about Lap Dog: Appearance, History and Breeds, Extinct Lapdog Breeds, Idiomatic Use
Famous quotes containing the words lap and/or dog:
“Four and twenty at her back
And they were a’ clad out in green;
Tho the King of Scotland had been there
The warst o’ them might hae been his Queen.
On we lap and awa we rade
Till we cam to yon bonny ha’
Whare the roof was o’ the beaten gold
And the floor was o’ the cristal a’.”
—Unknown. The Wee Wee Man (l. 21–28)
“The slime pool that the dog drowned in . . .
A drunk vomiting up a teaspoon of bile . . .
Washing the polio off the grapes when I was ten . . .
A Harvard book bag in Rome . . .”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)