Tenerife Dog

		Tenerife Dog
		He is not recognized by the F.C.I.


Origin			Island of Tenerife (Canary Islands)
Translation			Francis Vandersteen
En français, cette race se dit			Chien de Tenerife
Diese Norm ist in deutscher Sprache sichtbar			Teneriffa-Hund
En español, esta raza se dice			Perro de Tenerife
In het Nederlands, wordt dit ras gezegd			Tenerife-hond
This breed is also known as			Tenerife Bichon

The Tenerife Bichon was a small Bichon-type dog once found on the island of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands archipelago off the coast of North Africa. Although it did not constitute a breed in the modern sense of the word, it was bred as a distinct lineage on the island for several centuries. Introduced to the island by the Spanish, this dog is considered by some authors to be the primary ancestor of the Bichon family. However, this hypothesis seems unlikely, as the existence of the Maltese Bichon is documented well before the arrival of the Spanish in Tenerife. Other authors maintain that the Tenerife Bichon was simply the precursor to the modern Bichon Frisé and—through the Coton de la Réunion (now extinct)—the Coton de Tuléar.