Formosan vs Taiwan Dogs

That dusty-mouth, light brown, adorable dog in the picture above is a Taiwan Dog; the black ones are truly indigenous. Both types are considered by researchers to be varieties of the Formosan Mountain Dog.

As the world learns about the brilliant, lovable dogs of Taiwan, beware of well-intended misunderstanding (myself included). Dog Wiz made a great video explaining the history of Taiwan's indigenous Formosan Mountain Dog.

This black, indigenous dog I call properly and technically the Formosan Takasago Canis. I also call it the Formosan Black in conversation. The Taiwanese call it the Gaoshan Tugou. This is the black dog in the pictures, about the size of a beagle.

The brown variety was was only in Taiwan's mountains for the last thousand years or so. The black ones go all the way back to nature, Darwin, and Noah.

Those are my three dogs you see in that picture above. The brown one is named Lucky (Instagram @luckyskatedog), with his own story of how he adopted me before I adopted the two Formosan Blacks, Drake and Flavor. After 15 years of living as a foreigner in Taiwan, I returned with a family of my own. This article explains the dogs' history and why I would spend $2,000 to bring back, of all things, three dogs.

Different Histories

The Formosan Takasago is a Beagle-sized, Greyhound-shaped, black dog with a hairless belly and a fossil dating back 4,800 years named "Xiao Hei" (probably meaning 'Little Black' from 小黑). Taiwan's brindle and brown dogs are from aborigine migrations and colonization 500-1,000 years ago. (I'm still collecting the full history about that.) Here's a painting from the Qing Dynasty:

By Unknown artist commissioned by Qing dynasty envoy Liu Shiqi for his report, Images of Barbarian Customs[2][3][4] - http://www.gutenberg-e.org/andrade/mindex.html, Public Domain, Link

And, here are two brindle Taiwan Dogs I met on the streets of Taiwan:

The Brink of Extinction

As these foreign dogs of colonists, tourists, and foreign investors began living at large in the wild, the pure Formosans became less common. The Dutch colonists (1624), Japanese rulers (1895), and many Chinese governments all tried to exterminate the black Formosans. When Chiang Kai-shek fled Mao Zedong and took Taiwan under martial law in 1949, their mainland Chinese culture of eating dogs pushed the Formosan to extinction more than any other event in history.

In the late 1970s, a Japanese researcher named Ota Keming teamed up with National Taiwan University and Dr. Sung Yung-yi to save the Formosan. Over four years they searched 29 aboriginal villages and found 160 dogs; only 46 were thought to be pure Formosans. The black Formosan survived thanks to their efforts.

In short, the smaller black dog is the indigenous Formosan, all others are more or less mixes of that black Formosan. The mixes are the "Taiwan Dog", often called "Tugou" in Taiwan. You may notice the similar ear and nose shape in those two brindle Tugous above—probably because they have Formosan in their blood.

In fact, when dog breed blogs and vlogs claim that the "Taiwan Dog" comes in many colors, those are the various mutts on the streets of Taiwan with a Formosan ancestry.

Reference Photos

John Thomson photographed Taiwan in 1871, including one photo of two aborigines and a Formosan dog. Here's a famous picture:

Here's another photo from National Geographic:

By 勝山寫真館 - http://love.youthwant.com.tw/11/pre_readz.php?stud_id=100245750&bid=100702173013z11Y, Public Domain, Link

These dogs look strikingly similar to Drake and Flavor.

Names

The name "Formosan" comes from the Portuguese name for Taiwan, "Ilha Formosa", literally "beautiful island". Like "America", "Formosa" is the historic explorer's name for the island we know today as "Taiwan".

"Takasago" (高砂) is Japanese literally translating to "high sand", a reference to living on the upper mountain. A Japanese name is fitting for the dog that the Japanese helped save.

"Gaoshan Tugou" (高山土狗) is the Mandarin name used by local Taiwanese. It literally translates "high mountain land dog". The term "high mountain" is used the same to mean "arabica coffee" or "upper mountain tea". The brown, brindle, and other other mixed dogs are merely called "Tugou" (土狗). The mountain reference is reserved for the indigenous Formosan.

Why I care

In other articles, I'll write more about the Formosan's traits and how I was able to identify Drake and Flavor as puppies in the pound. But, it all began with Lucky and Lucy...

Lucky had his own story of adopting me during a cold Lunar New Year week. I just couldn't leave him outside, even though my landlord would eventually evict me for taking him in. Lucky's story is another article for another day. But, he led me to Lucy.

After fifteen years and Lucky rescuing my own heart, then finally deciding to return to America, I wanted Lucky to have puppies of his own. I reached out to one of the dog haven foundations you'll probably find links to online. It turned out that they believe it to be inhumane for dogs to ever have puppies if owned by a human. Sounds crazy, right?

Not long after, and possibly having my name spread around without my consent, someone reached out to me and asked if I wanted to adopt a real Formosan Mountain Dog. I was sent this photo of a female Formosan with one leg who needed a home.

I never had the chance to adopt her. I never had the place or the money.

You see, this dog lover had found her and tried to rescue her. But, so the story goes, her first puppy litter was thrown in the garbage and the second litter was run over with a car. By the time I had arranged for a cage to keep her (since I had no other way), she had already gone missing. I called animal shelters, but none had seen her.

Lucy wasn't the first Formosan to receive a name posthumously. I first learned about Taiwan's native dog five years earlier when I met Bogo. He was an abandoned dog sleeping inside a 7-Eleven, wild to humans. I actually tamed him before he was struck by a car.

These Formosans are some of the most adorable Best Friends I've ever encountered. Two of them I just couldn't save because I didn't have enough money.

Hopefully, Flavor & Drake's puppies are valuable enough to Americans that I'll never be unable to help a lost Formosan again.

Yes, Flavor finally had puppies! Three boys and five girls. She's never been happier! This may be the first documented Formosan Takasago Canis litter ever born in the Western Hemisphere. But, I can't be certain. There's just so much we still don't know.