We Coton de Tulears are known for our charm and sense of humor, and one of our favorite things to do to make our humans laugh is to walk or dance around on our hind legs! The hind leg walk may be our most famous gag, but we Cotons are great at learning all sorts of fun tricks if our human has time to train us. This also makes us great at agility. We may be a small breed, but don’t let our small size fool you – we are strong. Even though we technically don’t need a ton of exercise, we love being active if it means spending more time with you!

We Coton de Tulears are known as entertaining dogs, and the humans certainly came up with some entertaining stories about our origins! Our name comes from our cotton-like coat (coton is the French word for cotton) and the port city of Tulear on the island of Madagascar, which is where our breed comes from. While everybody knows our breed comes from Madagascar, there are some truly spectacular tales about how our ancestors got there. One of the most popular stories is that our earliest ancestors were companion dogs at sea and were the only survivors of a shipwreck! As the story goes, they swam to shore in Madagascar and lived on their own in the wild, breeding with native dogs to create the Cotons that exist today. While we are very hearty little dogs and great swimmers, this story is just that – a story. What is much more likely is that my ancestors were Bichon-type white dogs brought to Madagascar on trading and pirate ships in the 16th century. What we know for sure is that the peopl