Portuguese Water Dog

About the Portuguese Water Dog

The Portuguese Water Dog, also known as the Algarvian Water Dog, or Portuguese Fishing Dog, is a breed of dog that originated from the Algarve region of Portugal. From there the breed expanded to all around Portugal's coast, where they were taught to herd fish into fishermen's nets, retrieve lost tackle or broken nets, and act as couriers from ship to ship, or ship to shore.

Portuguese Water Dogs rode in fishing trawlers as they worked their way from the Atlantic waters of Portugal to the waters off the coast of Iceland fishing for cod.

Text from the Wikipedia article “Portuguese Water Dog” (lead section), CC BY-SA 4.0.