a guess on pooch=dog origin

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>If this hypothesis has any merit, one would like to find "pocket dog",
>"pouch dog", and/or "pooch[y] dog" attested in the 19th century.

Here's a start: "pocket dog" from 1914 ... "sleeve dog" too [the Chinese
version?] ... now I need the Scots version "pouch dog" ... and a little
earlier ....

Rex Beach, _The Auction Block_ (from Proj. Gutenberg): Ch. 20:

<<At a fashionable up-town kennel he found exactly what he wanted, in the
shape of a Pekingese -- a playful, pedigreed pocket dog scarcely larger
than his two fists. It was a creature to excite the admiration of any
woman; its family tree was taller than that of a Spanish nobleman, and its
name was Ying. But here again Bob was handicapped by poverty, for sleeve
dogs are expensive novelties, and the price of Ying was seven hundred
dollars--marked down from one thousand, and evidently the bargain of a
lifetime at that price.>>

-- Doug Wilson