today, my friend pulled out this Life magazine from the 1970's. it had two
adorable Shar Pei on the cover, and included an article about "rare" dog
breeds. i found it pretty interesting.

the dogs that were included were the Shar Pei, Neo Mastiff, Aussie, JRT,
Loewchen (they called it the little lion dog), and Portuguese Water Dog.

of the dogs, the Shar Pei and Neo barely looked like the dogs we know today.
the Pei had almost no snout, just a normal dog nose. not much of the black
pigment around the face either. it was adorable, but totally unlike the
breed we know today. the Neo looked more like a Cane Corso than a Neo. it
hardly had any of the skin folds that the modern Neo has.

the JRT was pretty long in the body, but the picture was of him jumping and
twisting to catch a tennis ball, so it was hard to tell. the Aussie looked
exactly like an Aussie, and the PWD was swimming with only his nose and eyes
exposed, so that was hard to tell too.

anyway, i thought it was pretty cool to see which dogs were rare enough that
most americans wouldn't recognize them. especially when at least two of the
breeds are common enough that there's one in every neighborhood.

-kelly