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Beware—one look into
the almond eyes of a Gompa Lhasa Apso and you will lose your heart to
their souls and the mysticism of their Tibetan heritage!
Generally
smaller than today’s westernized Lhasa Apso, these little “Gompa dogs” (in
Tibetan, gompa means monastery) are direct descendants from
the monastery dogs at the Drepung Monastery in Tibet. Protected and
fostered by Lama Gyen Yeshe the bloodlines of these shaggy little
treasures of the past have remained untainted and their physical
characteristics are true to the monastery Apsos that once ran
freely through the great halls and passageways as part of Tibetan
monastery life.
The Gompa
Lhasa Apso breeding program, directed by Debby Rothman of
Gompa Kunza kennels, picks up the tradition of purity first entrusted by Lama Gyen Yeshe
to Gerald D’Aoust, and continued by Cecile Clover of Lotus
kennel in Virginia.
With their precious connection to the past, the monastery dogs come
into a well established Western tradition of the Lhasa Apso dating back to
the 1930s, when the Cuttings’ Hamilton Kennels breeding program
established the Lhasa Apso in the U.S. In the 75 years since, careful
attention to the breed has led to the coat and conformation and “look” so
prized in Lhasa Apsos today. But as with so many efforts at breeding and
cultivation—from cattle to crop seeds—the original manifestation of the
breed in Tibet differs slightly from the Lhasa of the 21st
century.
The
Gompa dogs are not only smaller than their western cousins, but they move
differently: they are lighter, springier, covering less ground with their
strides and often carrying their tails looser. Most striking,
though, are their smaller, almond-shaped eyes, which are set more
obliquely into their playfully intelligent faces.
The
importance of this breeding program cannot be overstated: here, in these
Gompa dogs, lies the origin of the Lhasa Apso as we know it today. The
Gompa dogs stand as a legacy from Tibet, speaking for their ancestors from
a country whose monasteries have been destroyed and whose tradition of
shaggy little dogs running to sound an alarm or settling peacefully beside
the monks for companionship have disappeared - lost forever since the
1950s.
Their Tibetan monastery heritage makes
the Gompa dogs a priceless treasure—heirlooms of the past. Work
being done by the Gompa Lhasa Apso Preservation Program assure that the importance of this preservation is
recognized, and that the Gompa dog lineage is protected in the future.
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