The Spanish Water Dog or Perro de Agua Español is a Spanish breed of water dog. It was traditionally used for a variety of tasks: as a herding dog for sheep or cattle; as a gundog to find and retrieve game in marshlands; and as an aid to inshore fishermen on the Cantabrian coast. In the twenty-first century it is kept principally as a companion dog.
Three sub-populations of the breed were identified in the late twentieth century: the Marismeño ('marsh dog') of the Marismas del Guadalquivir at the mouth of the river of the same name; the Serrano ('sierra dog') of southern Andalucia; and the Norteño ('northern dog') of Cantabria and Asturias. This last was recognised in Spanish law in 2012 as a separate breed, the Cantabrian Water Dog.
The Perro de Agua is a traditional dog population of Spain. It was always a minority breed, present in smaller numbers than some other Spanish dogs. The population is thought to have remained fairly stable until the 1970s and 1980s, when – as a consequence of changes to methods of both agriculture and fishery – numbers fell sharply, to the point that the dogs were considered to be at risk of extinction. Until this time there had been no scientific study of the breed; in the 1980s a study of the dogs in the province of Malaga was carried out, and further work was done by researchers at the Universidad de Córdoba in the 1990s.
Three sub-populations of the breed were identified, on the basis both of observed differences in physical size and of differences in the distribution of coat colours; the characteristics of the head were found to be similar in all of the dogs. The sub-groups were: the Marismeño ('marsh dog') of the Marismas del Guadalquivir, at the mouth of the river of the same name in western Andalucia; the Serrano ('sierra dog') of southern Andalucia; and the smaller Norteño ('northern dog') of Cantabria and Asturias.
The Spanish Water Dog or Perro de Agua Español is a Spanish breed of water dog. It was traditionally used for a variety of tasks: as a herding dog for sheep or cattle; as a gundog to find and retrieve game in marshlands; and as an aid to inshore fishermen on the Cantabrian coast. In the twenty-first century it is kept principally as a companion dog.
