Shih Tzu archive tees, sweatshirts and hoodies

Tibetan monasteries kept small lion-like dogs and sent them as gifts to the Chinese imperial court, where palace breeding produced the Shih Tzu proper. The Dowager Empress Cixi ran substantial kennels in the late nineteenth century, and after her death in 1908 the lines scattered; a handful of dogs reached England in the 1930s, and nearly every Shih Tzu alive descends from that very small founding group. The character is not what people expect of a small coated dog. Shih Tzus are neither anxious nor clingy but self-possessed, faintly amused, and expert at locating the single warmest patch of sun in a house. The archive drawing gives the face its proper width, keeps the undershot jaw honest, and lets the coat fall without a topknot, closer to the temple dog than the show ring.