It’s hard to image that two of the names by which the Pug was known was the Dutch Mastiff and Miniature Mastiff because the breed is not a Mastiff, nor is it Dutch. There was a third name: “Pugnaces Britanniae,”  Pugnus being Latin for “fist” because many people thought this described a Pug’s face. “Pugnaces Britanniae” was Latin for “English Mastiff,” and there were enough people back in the day who thought that a Mastiff kinda sorta resembled a behemoth Pug. On steroids. And stilts.

That said, for all its different monikers (which include Mops, Mopsi, Carlin, Carline, Doguillo, Chinese Pug Dog, Dutch Bulldog, Lo-Chiang-Sze, and Lo-sze), most experts who initially thought the Pug was developed by the Chinese, then crossed with long-haired Tibetan dogs such as the Lhasa Apso to create the Pekingese, would be wrong. Current research suggests the Pekingese is, in fact, the older breed, having been the one to have descended from the original Tibetan dogs brought to China.

Image: “Pug Interpretive Dance” by Lauren from InkPug
www.etsy.com/shop/InkPug