- At one time Portuguese Water Dogs existed all along Portugal’s coast, where they herded fish into nets, retrieved lost tackle or broken nets, and acted as couriers from ship to ship, or ship to shore.
- During their working days PWD’s were considered part of a ship’s crew and got a share of both the money and fish earned for the catch. After a fisherman retired, they would often have to rent out their dogs for the extra cash.
- In his native land, the breed is called Cao de Agua (pronounced Kown-d’Ahgwa). Cao means dog, de Agua means of water. He is also known as the Portuguese Fishing Dog.
- Some believe that the breed traces as far back as 700 B.C. to the wild Central-Asian steppes, near the Chinese-Russian border.
- A Portuguese Water Dog is first described in 1297 in a monk’s account of a drowning sailor who was pulled from the sea by a dog with a “black coat, the hair long and rough, cut to the first rib and with a tail tuft”
- At one point, there were only 25 Portuguese water dogs in the entire world
- Portuguese water dogs, like many other retrieving breeds, have webbed toes. This is common among most water dogs, as the webbed toes are designed for swimming with ease.
This information is from this blog on Portugese Water Dogs
