Are any dog breeds useless?

[Kit]

My friend maintains that all dog breeds originally started out as working dogs. (Rather later than stone age hunter-gatherers here - we're talking proper dog breeds.) I think that some eg Pekinese and King Charles spaniels (amongst others) have only ever been lap dogs, bred to be cute, and were never working dogs. Am I wrong? Are there uses for chihuahuas and Papillons, for instance, that I don't know about?

[Robinia]

Well I have a K.C.spaniel & he's absolutely beautiful & totally brainless -definitely not much help around the place!! I had a standard poodle previously & he was very intelligent (but acted as if he wasn't on occasion). I believe they were bred to retrieve water birds but he hated water!

[FredPuli]

Lap dogs have been around for hundreds of years and all were bred from working dogs. It would be an odd step to take a wild wolf and set out to make a Yorkie or griffon bruxellois as your main aim !The Maltese terrier is one of the oldest recorded; terriers were bred to control vermin; but this one was a lapdog pure and simple. The papillon and the Cavalier King Charles spaniel were bred from spaniel gundogs . Chihuahuas, it seems, were bred to eat. In Latin and South America they would be a change from cui (guinea pig). on a skewer. Other breds are more obviously bred as small versions of others that worked. The standard poodle was bred to retrieve ducks but the miniature and the toy versions as companions only. The American cocker spaniel is a smaller version of the working cocker spaniel and so on. Some small breeds were bred for a specific function; the Shih-tzu was to accompany Tibetan monks ; the Pekinese was bred for royalty and is, supposedly, to resemble some mythological lion dog . Not all toy and companion dogs are ancient breeds. The toy poodle dates from the 1950s and the American cocker is not much older. As with their ancestors their existence is due to market demand; we still breed dogs for our needs, working or not. Breeds are still being crossed to get certain characteristics for us; the non-moulting but quiet poodle/cocker cross the 'cockerpoo' looks set to become another in time

[woofgang]

All dogs were bred for a function, some dogs job is to be a companion or foot warmer some to catch game and help to feed the house, by me, being a companion or a decoration is just as much of a "job" as being a herder!

[Cetti]

Well Kit, my cousin was a vet for a great many years and reckoned Red Setters and Beagles were the daftest of all the breeds - call them and they run in the opposite direction! This was his view, not mine as I would love a Beagle.

[thewillow]

Chows, afghan hounds, basenji and bulldogs according to this article in The Guardian from November last.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/thisweek/story/0,12977,108340 9,00.html

[Kit]

Ah. Oh dear. Must word my questions more carefully - seems I'm in danger of offending our canine readers. (My cats don't care, they know they're the highest form of life on the planet and anything that insults dog intelligence is OK by them - they've throughly enjoyed reading this!) Thanks for all your answers - I will look at chihuahuas in a new light from now on (ie lunch!)

[fly258]

I was going to get a Beagle but couldn't afford to keep it in fags and make up :)