Breed History

Developed in Beijing, the Pekingese breed was believed to of been a special breed of dog that was able to drive away negative spirits and was also owned by Monks, Princes and other royalty. This breed has been around for hundreds of years and is extremely popular in the United States today.

Breed Appearance

The Pekingese is a small breed dog with males and females measuring 6-9 inches in height and weighing 8-10 pounds. Please note that males and females may be smaller or larger than show standard and still be purebred. This breed is built very low to the ground, stocky and somewhat long in appearance. The Pekingese has a broad and tall shaped head that is rounded on both sides with two long, pendant shaped ears hanging gently along their face. Their two round eyes are large and available in light brown to black in color and sometimes blue. This breed has two short, thick legs generally being covered by their long coat. Their tail is medium in length, carried up and over onto their back and has hair flowing off of it. Their coat is a double layer, soft in texture and long in length; available in all colors.

Breed Temperament

This small breed is courageous, loyal, confident and loving. The Pekingese is best suited for confident owners that are able to remain pack leader within the home and follow consistent rules and boundaries for their new dog within the home, long term. This breed is good with children and other dogs and pets that he or she is able to grow up around. This breed needs a fair amount of daily physical and mental activity to remain happy and healthy. The Pekingese needs to feel loved, affection and apart of the family as much as possible. This breed is a good watchdog and can bark more than other breeds. When not receiving enough physical and mental exercise, this breed will start to develop destructive behavior and excessive barking. Early socialization and training classes are highly recommended.

Breed Grooming

This breed does shed. Daily brushing and bathing when needed. Regular trips to a professional groomer are required.

Special Notes

Please fully educate yourself about the Pekingese prior to adding one to your household to ensure you are able to provide a life long commitment both physically and financially. This breed requires a properly fenced in yard or proper fitting harness and leash while outdoors at all times. This breed is prone to breathing issues, weakened immune system, muscle and join issues and difficult births. All dogs originate from wolves (Canis Lupus). Each breed of dog was originally created by mixing different breeds together in an effort to bring forth certain characteristics. Once a breeder has created acceptable “breed characteristics” within their bloodline and these “breed characteristics” have shown to be reliably reproduced in the offspring for three (3) generations, the bloodline may be upgraded from the category of “foundation stock” to “pure-bred”. The same “pure-bred” breed standards vary from different continents, countries, territories, regions, breed clubs, and canine pure-breed registries depending on the goals of their breeders.

Dog DNA testing companies can have accurate results for a specific bloodline of a small colony of dogs. However, there are tens of thousands of different bloodlines in the world which have not yet been tested for marker baseline results by Dog DNA testing companies as of 2024. For this reason Dog DNA testing companies do not guarantee the 100% accuracy of their breed lineage results and will also show different marker results for the same pure-bred breed in different continents, countries, territories, regions, breed clubs, and canine pure-breed registries depending on the goals of their breeders.