The story
of the Gompa
dog
from the Himalayas
The Gompa Lhasa Apso Preservation Program, a small population management program, seeks to perpetuate the genetic lineage of the Gompa Lhasa Apso. This Program, made up of volunteers who each give freely of their time and talent, is a labor of science, love and hope. Science is the underpinning of the Program and the foundation of all the activities to perpetuate the lineage, love is what got the dogs this far on their very long journey, and hope is what keeps those involved in the Program together and moving forward.
Gompa is the Tibetan word for a monastery's main meditation hall, and Apso is Tibetan for hairy dog. Lhasa, of course, is the capital of Tibet, and the name "Lhasa Apso" came into use by Westerners when these little dogs became popular in the West.
These charming little "monastery dogs" are direct descendants of the Apsos at the Drepung Monastery in Tibet. Like messengers from the past, they connect today's Apsos with the shaggy little dogs that once ran freely through the great halls and passageways as part of Tibetan monastery life. Although genetically equivalent to the Lhasa Apsos in current breeding programs, the Gompa dogs have not been bred towards a written standard of perfection; they have not been bred to type. They are reminiscent of dogs one would have seen in Tibet prior to the 1950s - their coats, for example, are the same as those shown in pre-1950 photos of Apsos taken in Tibet.
The importance of this program cannot be overstated:
here, in the Gompa dogs, lies the origin of the Lhasa Apso as we know it today.
Descended from ancestors in a country whose spiritual traditions are its
culture, the Gompa dogs stand as a legacy from Tibet, where thousands of
monasteries (and their Apsos) have been systematically destroyed since the
1950s. They speak not only for their ancestors but for their ancient purposes in
monastery life, whether running to sound an alarm or settling peacefully beside
the monks for companionship.
