I am a proud owner of a copy of the Tong Daeng book. Unfortunately it's not here with me now, but in Italy, so I can't check. If I remember well, the book says that Tong Daeng is a hybrid, not a pure breed dog. The book says something similar to what Joy states when she writes: "TD should be seen as a real Thai dog because she was born in Thailand, has spent all or most of her life here, and sees herself as a Thai dog". I liked the book, because of its hidden meaning (or at least the meaning I thought I found between the lines): it doesn't matter how humble one's origins are, one can be very smart and achieve a lot of things.