Portuguese Water Dogs once existed all along Portugal's coast, where it was taught to herd fish into the nets, to retrieve lost tackle or broken nets, and to act as a courier from ship to ship, or ship to shore.

Wikipedia contributors, 'Portuguese Water Dog,' Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portuguese_Water_Dog&oldid=179732992 (accessed December 24, 2007). Photograph By Silke Hollje-Schumacher (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons