Webbed feet and a water-resistant coat make it a natural lifesaver.

Bred for strength and endurance rather than speed, it hauled heavy loads across the Arctic.

It has double dewclaws on its hind legs, a feature required by the breed standard.

It pulled carts of milk and cheese to market in the Swiss Alps.

It served as a messenger and ambulance dog in the First World War.

Boxers are known for their 'kidney bean' wiggle when excited.

It was bred by 19th-century gamekeepers to track and pin down poachers.

It is one of the oldest and rarest purebred dogs native to North America.

Its name roughly translates from Latin as 'bodyguard dog'.

It was developed by a German tax collector, Louis Dobermann, as a protection dog.

It has one of the largest heads in proportion to its body of any breed.

It is an ancestor of both the Dobermann and the Miniature Pinscher.

It drove cattle to market in Bavaria before becoming a police dog.

Often called the 'Apollo of dogs', it was once used to hunt wild boar.

It still works as a sledge dog in Greenland today.

Its name means 'estate guardian' in Middle High German.

It was bred to resemble the lion on the crest of the town of Leonberg.

It is one of the heaviest dog breeds in the world.

Its loose, heavily wrinkled skin is its trademark feature.

It herded fish into nets and carried messages between boats.

It protected sheep from wolves and bears in the Pyrenees.

Butchers in Rottweil are said to have tied their money pouches to its collar for safekeeping.

It was developed by the Soviet Army's Red Star kennels as a working guard dog.

Huskies helped deliver diphtheria medicine to Nome, Alaska, in the 1925 'Serum Run'.

Monks at the Great St Bernard Pass used them to find travellers lost in the snow.

It traditionally guarded villages and livestock in the Himalayas.