Similar to other strains of Polynesian dogs, it was introduced to the Society Islands and Tahiti by the ancestors of the Tahitian (Mā’ohi) people during their migrations to Polynesia.

[5] Similar breeds of Polynesian dogs were brought alongside pigs and chickens when the people settled the islands of Polynesia.

By 1834, British traveler Frederick Debell Bennett noted: "Amongst the Society Islands, the aboriginal dog, which was formerly eaten as a delicacy by the natives, is now extinct, or merged into mongrel breeds by propagation with many exotic varieties.

[16] Luomala noted that the "source material of taxonomists has been derived, often at second- and third-hand, from impressionistic descriptions by members of the expeditions of Captain Cook and other eighteenth-century explorers, none of whom give a single measurement or preserved a specimen for scientific study".

Their head is broad, the snout pointed, the eyes very small, the ears upright, and their hair rather long, lank, hard, and of different colours, but most commonly white and brown.

[10][11]Tahitian Dogs were offered and served by high ranking chiefs to the early European explorers who visited the islands.

When trading with natives, Wallis' men accepted the offerings of hogs and cloth but untied the dogs and turned them loose, an act that confused the Tahitians.

We had lately learnt, that these animals were esteemed by the Indians as more delicate food than their pork; and upon this occasion we determined to try the experiment; the dog, which was very fat, we consigned over to Tupia, who undertook to perform the double office of butcher and cook.

While this was doing, a hole was made in the ground about a foot deep, in which a fire was kindled, and some small stones placed in layers alternately with the wood to heat; the dog was then singed, by holding him over the fire, and, by scraping him with a shell, the hair taken off as clean as if he had been scalded in hot water: he was then cut up with the same instrument, and his entrails being taken out, were sent to the sea, where being carefully washed, they were put into cocoa-nut shells, with what blood had come from the body; when the hole was sufficiently heated, the fire was taken out, and some of the stones, which were not so hot as to discolour any thing that they touched, being placed at the bottom, were covered with green leaves, the dog, with the entrails, was then placed upon the leaves, and other leaves being laid upon them, the whole was covered with the rest of the hot stones, and the mouth of the hole close stopped with mould: in somewhat less than four hours it was again opened, and the dog taken out excellently baked, and we all agreed that he made a very good dish.

A few works likely depicting the aboriginal dog breed done by Parkinson, Webber, Alexander Buchan and John Frederick Miller were compiled by American anthropologist Katharine Luomala, including the two images above.

[32][33] Artist Paul Gauguin depicted dogs in Tahiti and the Marquesas—although it is unclear whether they were the prototypical Polynesian Dog—in several works, including I raro te oviri (I) (Under the Pandanus I) (1891) and Arearea (Joyfulness) 1892.

[37] Archaeologic records indicate that dogs were present in the Society Islands from the period of initial settlement up to the point of European contact.

[4] In 1973, American archaeologists Yosihiko H. Sinoto and Patrick C. McCoy discovered bone fragments of domesticated dogs and pigs in the early settlements of Vaiato'oia (near Fa'ahia) on the island of Huahine.