Pekingese: Stealing One Was Punishable by Death

Worth knowing as real, documented history: in Imperial China, Pekingese were considered so sacred that stealing one was punishable by death. These dogs were reserved exclusively for the imperial family and lived within palace walls, closely guarded — this wasn't casual royal fondness, but formal, legally enforced reverence.

One Chinese legend tells of a lion who fell in love with a marmoset monkey and asked Buddha to shrink him down so they could be together, while letting him keep his heart and courage — the resulting creature became the Fu Lin, or guardian lion dog. Whether or not the legend is literally true, it likely reflects why Chinese nobility specifically bred small dogs to resemble lions, an animal holding deep symbolic significance in Chinese Buddhist culture.

Worth telling in full, since it's genuinely documented history: in 1860, at the end of the Second Opium War, British forces looted and burned Beijing's Imperial Summer Palace. Only a handful of Pekingese survived the destruction. One was presented to Queen Victoria by a British soldier, Captain John Hart Dunne — and Queen Victoria named the dog Looty, a genuinely specific, memorably blunt name given the exact circumstances of how the dog came into British hands. This single event marks the breed's actual entry into the Western world.

Worth knowing as a specific, functional historical detail: the smallest Pekingese, weighing under 6 lbs, were specifically called "sleeve dogs" — small enough to literally ride inside the wide sleeve cuffs of royal court robes, serving as portable companions and miniature guard dogs. Dogs weighing 6 to 8 lbs were classified separately as "Mini Pekingese." This wasn't loose terminology; it reflected a genuine functional and social distinction within the breed's palace role.

Beyond ancient royalty, the Pekingese has had genuine modern celebrity owners including financier J.P. Morgan, entertainer Joan Rivers, and Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt — a specific, verifiable thread connecting the breed's imperial past to more recent Western prominence.

Pekingese are consistently described as independent and self-possessed — content with their own company at times, and inclined to set their own pace on walks rather than match an owner's eagerness. This regal self-importance is a genuine, consistently documented breed trait tracing directly to centuries as a pampered palace companion, not a trained-in quirk.

The Shih Tzu is believed to descend partly from the Pekingese, crossed with the Lhasa Apso after Tibetan monks gifted small dogs to Chinese emperors.

While some sources describe the breed favorably as long-lived (commonly 13-15 years), it's worth knowing honestly that as a brachycephalic (flat-faced) breed, Pekingese can share breathing-related considerations common to similarly-structured breeds — worth discussing directly with a vet, particularly around heat tolerance and exercise intensity, rather than assuming flat-faced structure carries no meaningful health implications here.