Portuguese Water Dogs are a working breed. This isn’t just a category, it means they were bred to work. Every day.
Though most of us are not ever going to ask our dogs to pull in a fishing line, or courier a message to another boat, owning a working breed means we can, and should, ask them to perform other tasks. This can be as simple as practicing ongoing tasks like basic obedience, or as complicated as formal water work or agility. Either way, with a PWD you’ve got a dog who can and will delight in working together with you to accomplish fun things.
Like all purebred dogs PWDs have traits and characteristics that are specifically bred into them. There are both positive and negative traits depending on how they are viewed. For example, PWDs are considered to be a somewhat ‘mouthy’ breed. This trait was selected for when breeding so that the dogs would naturally want to pick things up off the ground or out of the water and bring them to their owner. Sounds reasonable right? Right. But every positive can be flipped and this trait can also mean your adorable dog will be constantly looking for socks and other less desirable things to put in her mouth.