The Chow Chow, often simply called the Chow, is one of the oldest breeds. His exact history is lost in the China of antiquity. Some historians record that the Tarters invaded China a thousand years before Christ and brought back to the West some middle-sized dogs that looked like “lions” with blue-black tongues.

The Chow as it is known today is easily recognizable in pottery and sculptures of the Chinese Han Dynasty (206 B.C. to 22 A.D.); other artifacts indicate that he was even a much older breed and that he may have come originally from the Arctic Circle, migrating to Mongolia, Siberia and China. Some scholars claim that the Chow was the original ancestor of the Samoyed, the Norwegian Elkhound, the Pomeranian and the Keeshond.