55. Dog breeds

I am reading a schlocky mystery right now which mentioned a couple of dog breeds in passing: some sort of terrier, and a Leonburger, with its sweet disposition. I had never heard of a Leonburger, so I looked it up. Turns out it's a huge breed of a dog—so yeah, not for me. 

Having never heard of that particular breed, though, I wondered what others were out there. Medium-sized ones, for example. And HA! 166 breeds just in A–D on the Wikipedia list of "extant breeds." Granted, these "breeds" are not all recognized by any major kennel club, but my own darling doodle Milo is not recognized by any major kennel club, so what do I care? These dogs all have a name, somewhere, somehow, and that's enough.

I'll just mention here a few of the breeds whose names I find especially winning, one from each letter of the alphabet, chosen by their musicality or oddity or geographicality:

alopekis (Greek origin)

bankhar dog (Russian, Mongolian)

chongqing (China)

drever (Sweden)

erbi txakur (Spain)

fila brasileiro (Brazil)

gascon santongeois (France)

huntaway (New Zealand)

Irish terrier (Ireland)

jagdterrier (Germany

kombai (India)

lagotto romagnolo (Italy)

McNab (United States)

Newfoundland (Canada)

otterhound (England)

pungsan (Korea)

rafeiro do Alentejo (Portugal)

Saarloos wolfdog (Netherlands)

tamaskan (Finland)

viszla (Hungary)

Welsh terrier (Wales)

xoloitzcuintle (Mexico)

Yakutian laika (Russia)

zerdava (Turkey

I only had to do one reshuffling to make this a geographically diverse list. And many countries were omitted. This breeding of dogs is a universal thing. It's something that draws us all together. Shouldn't we be focusing on those things that draw us all together? 

Dogs do. For sure.

Here's a picture I took today of my beloved goldendoodle, Milo. He'll be fifteen years old in another couple of weeks. He's showing his age. But he also makes plain his love of life.

We love our Milo so much.