Pomeranians love to be adored. Any Pom lover can tell you that, and now everyone knows it after seeing Maria Sharapova’s series of Canon PowerShot camera commercials in which Dolce (played by Pomeranian actor Beowulf) poses for adoring fans who ignore the tennis star.
It’s no surprise that the Pomeranian steals the limelight. The tiny spitz breed, descended from larger Nordic dogs of Iceland and Lapland, is proud and glamorous with a magnificent coat and a personality to match.
“I always say it’s impossible to appear in public – a park, a mall, on the street – with a Pom and not attract a crowd,” says longtime Pomeranian breeder and exhibitor Olga Baker of Dickinson, Texas. She would know. Baker and her husband, Darrell, owned (with handler Skip Piazza) BISS/BIS Am. Ch. Great Elms Prince Charming II, ROMX, HOF, who, in 1988, took Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, the first and so far only Pomeranian to do so.
History
The breed takes its name from Pomerania, a region located on the coast of the Baltic Sea in northern Europe. It’s believed that this was where the dogs were first bred down in size, from an original 20 to 30 pounds to the much smaller dogs we know and love today. The breed has changed quite a bit since it first became popular in Britain in 1888 after Queen Victoria brought one home from her vacation in Florence, Italy.
If we were to travel back in time to the first specialty show held by the American Pomeranian Club at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York in 1911, we might recognize the Pomeranian, but with a few differences. It would have a foxier face with a long, snipey muzzle. Instead of the popular red and orange Poms that predominate today, the dogs in the ring back then were seen in many colors: white, black, chocolate, cinnamon, brown, sable, cream and blue. Early Pomeranians were much less consistent in size than they are today. At one time, there were two classes for the breed: less than 7 pounds, and more than 7 pounds but not exceeding 20 pounds. Pomeranians today weigh 3 to 7 pounds, with an ideal show-ring weight of 4 to 6 pounds.
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