“The Portuguese Water Dog is a breed of working dog as classified by the American Kennel Club. Portuguese Water Dogs are originally from the Portuguese region of the Algarve, from where the breed expanded to all around 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 warm Atlantic waters of Portugal to the frigid fishing waters off the coast of Iceland where the fleets caught cod to bring home. Portuguese Water Dogs were often taken with sailors during the Portuguese discoveries”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Kix, a Portuguese Water Dog , enjoys a walk around the muddy fields near his home before the grooming and preparation starts for this years Crufts on March 3, 2009 in Telford, England. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

A 10 km prologue dog sled race on the eve of the 2018 Beringia dog sled race in Russia' s Far East; the prologue race is part of the 2018 Russian Winter Dog Powered Sports Cup in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia on March 4, 2018. (Photo by Yuri Smityuk/TASS)

Creative dog grooming is especially popular in Asia, but is becoming more and more prevalent in Europe and the States as well. See some pics of Barkleigh's Creative Styling Contest 2009 (Pasedena, CA).

A woman looks at photographs of dogs to choose a pet to rent at Puppy The World on January 24, 2009 in Tokyo, Japan. Rent-a-dog is becoming increasingly popular amongst people who love dogs but are unable to look after a pet full time due to limited living space or long working hours. Customers pay the dog-rental outlet around 2500 yen (32.5 USD) for an hour, and usually take their rented pet for a walk along the nearby beach. (Photo by Junko Kimura/Getty Images)

Melissa Stewart's team competes in the official restart of the Iditarod, a nearly 1,000 mile (1,610 km) sled dog race across the Alaskan wilderness, in Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S. March 6, 2017. (Photo by Nathaniel Wilder/Reuters)

A photographer has created a series of paw-traits of hungry dogs pulling hilarious faces as they try and catch treats. Using a unique technique, the shots are captured at the exact moment the adorable pooches attempt to catch an airborne piece of food. The dogs appear surprised, happy, sad, confused – and sometimes even so blasé they miss the treat entirely. The images were taken by Christian Vieler, a photographer from Waltrop, Germany. Here: A labrador retriever. (Photo by Christian Vieler/Caters News)