Companions and Toys
The charming look of the spitz-type, with its thick fur, fluffy ruff, curled tail and small muzzle and ears, has caused several people to create non-working types designed to be companions or lap dogs. This trend is most evident in the tiny Pomeranian, which was originally a much larger dog closer to the size of a Keeshond before being bred down to make an acceptable court animal. The Keeshond, the Wolfsspitz variation of the German Spitz, widely known as the national dog of the Netherlands, is an affectionate and loyal, albeit very energetic, pet.
Other spitz types which have been bred away from working uses are the American Eskimo Dog, the Alaskan Klee Kai, the German Spitz, the Japanese Spitz, and the Pomeranian.
Read more about this topic: Spitz
Famous quotes containing the words companions and/or toys:
“My only companions were the mice, which came to pick up the crumbs that had been left in those scraps of paper; still, as everywhere, pensioners on man, and not unwisely improving this elevated tract for their habitation. They nibbled what was for them; I nibbled what was for me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Fashionable women regard themselves, and are regarded by men, as pretty toys or as mere instruments of pleasure; and the vacuity of mind, the heartlessness, the frivolity which is the necessary result of this false and debasing estimate of women, can only be fully understood by those who have mingled in the folly and wickedness of fashionable life ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)