Leonberger University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland In the 1830s, Heinrich Essig, a dog breeder and seller and mayor of the town of Leonberg near Stuttgart in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, claimed to have created the Leonberger by crossing a female Landseer Newfoundland with a "barry" male from the Great St. Bernard Hospice and Monastery (which would later create the Saint Bernard breed). Later, according to Essig, a Pyrenean Mountain Dog was added, resulting in very large dogs with the long, white coats that were the fashion for the time, and pleasant temperament. The first dogs registered as Leonbergers were born in 1846 and
Karakachan dog Karakachan dog The Karakachan is a breed of dog that originated in Bulgaria as a mountain livestock guardian dog. Other names are Ovcharsko kuche and Thracian Mollos. The dog is named after the Karakachans, Balkan nomadic shepherds. Due to their conservative stock-breeding traditions, they have preserved some of the oldest breeds of domestic animals in Europe: the Karakachan sheep, Karakachan horse and the Karakachan dog. In the past, this mountain dog was widely used in Bulgaria as a border army watchdog. Nowadays it is used primarily as a livestock guardian dog and property guard dog. The most numerous populations of