This is a work in progress page and I will be adding more to it as I find the time. I would also like to sincerely thank everyone who has contributed information, suggestions and photos here.

*A Short History*

(If you just want to see photos of the different colors, scroll past all the typing)

400 B.C: The Chinese Dynasties, and the first selective Pug breeding programs date back this far. They were a beloved royal dog, and even had little covered carriages built for them so that they could travel in style while the other Palace dogs marched behind. Noted today as not being the most athletic dogs, this can easily be attributed to what they were first bred for: To be pampered and catered to. Their only official job was to be sweet, adorable and amusing to the Royal families. This did not change after importing as they were readily adopted into Palaces and Royal families for centuries to come.

1800's: The dog shows and the registry systems as we now know them begin. Pugs become a registered breed and are given a special show class. The first Kennel Club registry book shows 66 Pugs in total.

By now sufficient time has gone by for two distinctly different and prominent breeders to develop and promote their lines......

Willoughby and Morrison:

Lord Willoughby d'Eresby of Grimthorpe and Mr. Morrison of Walham Green, rival Pug breeders both living in England. They both established kennels and breeding programs influential to the point that nearly all Pugs became to be known as either a "Willoughby Pug" or a "Morrison Pug". 

Willoughby and Morrison both liked Fawn.. a LOT! They decided that Fawn was the ideal color (Black was not very prominent at all) But had very different visions of what that Fawn was supposed to look like.

It is well noted that the two rivals were competitive for many year. the orginal MAC vs PC, Everyone chose one side or another.

To summarize the most obvious differences briefly, Willoughby was more of a watercolor style breeder. His Fawns had a "smutty" coat, sometimes called salt and pepper, with many dark hairs integrated among the light. The black mask continued beyond the head, and fading slowly.

Morrison had more restricted, color within the lines ideals and his Fawns were very defined. The coat where light was very clear, with no dark hairs, and the mask was very dark with an abrupt stop at the edges of the face, as was the trace (the darker line along the spine) thin.

Although these two bloodlines were eventually combined, it is still easy to see the effects in todays Fawns, and to guess which ancestral side any given Pug takes after.

1900's: A trip back to the origins. Early in the 1900's a book is published called Dogs in China and Japan that recounts the experiences of a man named Wang Hou Chun. A servant in the Emperors Imperial Palace, Wang Hou Chun was a breeder and trainer of the royal dogs for seventy five years. He uses the word Lo-Sze to describe the Pugs, and among many interesting things discussed is the importance of the forehead wrinkles to the Chinese; they would look for certain patterns in the appearance of Chinese symbols and letters with the most prized being three wrinkles together meaning "Prince" (looks a bit like an upside down "W") also recorded are many Oriental Pugs having a great deal of White or being White altogether, and how the lines that produced the White and Spotted (spotted? Brindle perhaps?) Pugs were allowed to become almost completely lost.

Art: Pugs of Color have also been documented throughout history in photographs and art. Below is not a comprehensive list at all but at least to list a few:

1890's: King George V is photographed with his White Pug

1907:   A Silver-Grey Willoughby Pug is photographed taking a trophy in the show ring

1930's: A Kennel Club Book entitle "PUG" showcases a breeder holding an armful of very cute, very Brindle pug puppies in it's pages.

One of the more famous paintings of a Brindle Pug is from the Baroque period, commisioned by King Louis XV, who had many Pugs. Completed in 1730 by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, a well known artist for the palace and painter of another well known work entitled "Pug Dog" (among many others) Oudry's painting here is called "Old Virtue"

Today "Old Virtue" is on display at the Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille, the Lille Museum of Fine Arts in France.

There are many more historical documents, these are just a few samples.

Pugs of Color and the Show Rings:

Pugs of Color have always been rare, but only recently became an actual show ring disqualification. It was a vote pushed into effect by a handful of determined Pug Dog Club of America members, after more Pugs of color began showing up in the ring with the fawns and blacks. It effectually prevented White, Silver-grey and Brindle from entering the ring alongside their dogs.

In Fall of 2006, a Brindle pug was given the Blue Ribbon in a show in Canada. This angered many. If you can find and read some of the message threads from that year it is pretty incriminating...you'll see a great amount of anxiety from some PDCA members, saying things like (excerpts from two seperate sites) "what are we going to do?", "What is going to happen to my business when they are intentionally breeding brindle?" and even "it was because the judge was a foreigner".

Again, before this there was no color disqualification.

Although the AKC allowed the PDCA to set the show standard the AKC STILL supports, registers and recognizes Pugs of Color as pure Pugs.

Present Day:

The trickle effect of the culling out due to preference for Fawn (and to a lesser degree Black) and then the backlash to keep them out of the ring is definitely felt today. Pugs of color are often not treated fairly and are frequently referred to as being crossbred, deformed or unhealthy.

Although I do not wish to involve myself in the controversies that surround Pugs of Color, there are a few things that are certain:

1) The original Pug colors were undeniably culled out of most breeding programs to the brink of extinction, just as documents from the early 1900's were already lamenting back then, and continued well past.

2) Many show breeders, Pug organizations and standard clubs today deny this most probably due to the fact that they:

A) do not want to admit that this practice is or was possible in an organization that they are a part of.

B) naively believe what they have been told without doing the research themselves or

C) have spent years and generations perfecting their Fawn and Black programs and are threatened by these stunning, rare colors.

*Photos of various Pug Colors*