Portuguese Water Dog - (Obama’s pet Dog)

The Portuguese Water Dog, colloquially known as a Portie or PWD, is a working or utility dog that does best when he has a job to do. Portuguese Water Dogs once existed all along Portugal's coast, where they were taught to herd fish into fishermen's nets, to retrieve lost tackle or broken nets, and to act as couriers from ship to ship, or ship to shore. Portuguese Water Dogs rode in bobbing fishing trawlers as they worked their way from the cold Atlantic waters of Portugal to the frigid fishing waters off the coast of Iceland where the fleets caught cod to bring home.

The closest relatives of the PWD are widely thought to be the Barbet and Standard Poodle. Like Poodles and several other water dog breeds, PWDs are highly intelligent, can have curly coats, have webbed toes for swimming, and do not shed. However, Portuguese Water Dogs are more robustly built, with stout legs, and can have a wavy coat instead of tightly curled. Also, fanciers generally do not dock their tails, whereas Poodle tails are customarily docked. Portuguese Water Dog eyes are consistently brown, and their coats can be black, brown, black and white or brown and white.

Many brown dogs fade in shade as they age. There are very rare instances of white dogs without brown or black.Male Portuguese Water Dogs usually grow to be about 20 to 23 inches (51 cm to 58 cm) tall, and they weigh between 40 and 60 pounds (18 kg to 27 kg), while the females usually grow to be about 17 to 21 inches (43 cm to 53 cm) tall, and they weigh between 35 and 50 pounds.