The Moscow Water Dog, also known as the Moscow Diver, Moscow Retriever or Moskovsky Vodolaz, was a little-known

dog breed A dog breed is a particular strain of dog that was purposefully bred by humans to perform specific tasks, such as herding, hunting, and guarding. Dogs are the most variable mammal on Earth, with artificial selection producing around 450 globally ...

derived from the

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

Caucasian Shepherd Dog The Caucasian Shepherd Dog or Caucasian Ovcharka is a large livestock guardian dog native to the countries of the Caucasus region, notably Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ossetia, and Dagestan. It was developed in the Soviet Union from about 192 ...

and East European Shepherd. It is now extinct, but was used in the development of the Black Russian Terrier. The Moscow Water Dog was produced only by the Red Star Kennels, the state-operated organization chartered to provide working dogs for the armed services of the Soviet Union. The breeding program was discontinued as the dogs would attack drowning victims instead of saving them. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, there were very few working dogs in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, as many had been killed during the war. Some were imported but there were not enough to establish a dedicated breeding programme for a specific breed. The Central Military School of Working Dogs (the Red Star Kennels), under the command of Colonel G. P. Medvedev began working on developing a number of its own specialised breeds by crossing the available stock. A few breeds were established, including the Moscow Newfoundland, a cross of the

German Shepherd Dog The German Shepherd or Alsatian is a German breed of working dog of medium to large size. The breed was developed by Max von Stephanitz using various traditional German herding dogs from 1899. It was originally bred as a herding dog, for he ...

and the Newfoundland; the Moscow Great Dane, using the German Shepherd Dog and the

Great Dane The Great Dane is a large sized dog breed originating from Germany. The Great Dane descends from hunting dogs from the Middle Ages used to hunt wild boar and deer, and as guardians of German nobility. It is one of the largest breeds in the world ...

; the Brudasty Hound, which was an

Airedale Terrier The Airedale Terrier (often shortened to "Airedale"), also called Bingley Terrier and Waterside Terrier, is a dog breed of the terrier type that originated in the valley (''dale'') of the River Aire, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. It ...

and Russian Hound cross; the

Moscow Watchdog The Moscow Watchdog (russian: московская сторожевая, tr. ) is a breed of dog that was bred in the former Soviet Union. It descends from crosses between the St. Bernard and Caucasian Shepherd Dog. It contains the physical siz ...

, a combination of the St. Bernard and the

; and the Moscow Water Dog. The most successful breed to come out of the programme was the

Black Russian Terrier The Black Russian Terrier (russian: Русский чёрный терьер), also known as the Chornyi Terrier (''chornyi'' being Russian for black) is a breed of dog created in USSR in Red Star (Krasnaya Zvezda) Kennel during the late 1940s and ...

, which gained international recognition in 1984; it derived from a combination of 14 different breeds, including the Moscow Water Dog in the later stages of its development.

References

{{Extinct breeds of dog Lifesaving Extinct dog breeds Extinct animals of Russia Dog breeds originating in the Soviet Union