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:
“There was never a man born so wise or good, but one or more companions came into the world with him, who delight in his faculty, and report it. I cannot see without awe, that no man thinks alone and no man acts alone, but the divine assessors who came up with him into life,—now under one disguise, now under another,—like a police in citizen’s clothes, walk with him, step for step, through all kingdoms of time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If there is a species which is more maltreated than children, then it must be their toys, which they handle in an incredibly off-hand manner.... Toys are thus the end point in that long chain in which all the conditions of despotic high-handedness are in play which enchain beings one to another, from one species to another—cruel divinities to their sacrificial victims, from masters to slaves, from adults to children, and from children to their objects.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)