Misnamed dog breeds - Dog Breeds with Confusing and Wrong Names

 Some breeds have very descriptive names, which are exactly telling us what kind of a dog it is and from where it is. For example the Australian Shepherd is from Australia and American Eskimo from America, right? But are they really? Because very often, the dog breed is completely misnamed and very often the name is causing a lot of confusion. In this video i will show you 10 dog breeds that are surprisingly misnamed.

I already mentioned Australian Shepherd and American Eskimo in the beginning of the video, so lets just start with these two breeds. As you probably suspect, these two dogs are not from Australia and America, and you are correct.

The Australian Shepherd truly is a shepherd and herder, but it does not hail from Australia. They were developed in the 19th century in California, USA. The ancestry of these dogs is not completely clear, but it is believed that one of their ancestors are collies brought to the California from the New Zealand and Australia alongisde with sheep, which would explain the name. But they were truly developed in USA.

And the American Eskimo Dog? Well, this breed is not American and it is not associated with Eskimo people neither. It is basically the same breed as the German Spitz. German Spitz was brough to the USA with German immigrants, but due to the First, and later Second World War, everything associated with Germany was viewed as bad and unwanted, including German Spitzes. So some breeders decided to rename the breed and they have chosen the name American Eskimo Dog. Later the breed was crossbred and diverged and three different size varieties started to exist.

Next we have the Chinese Crested Dog. This is an ancient dog breed whose history is debatable, but most experts believe that these dogs are actually not of Chinese origin. The same genetic mutation shared with the Xoloitzcuintli leads to the theory that these two dogs have the same origin, which is most likely from Mexico or Africa. And dogs identical to the Chinese Crested dog were found by Spanish explorers in Mexico and other parts of Central and South America as early as the 1500s.

So the Chinese Crested dog is not Chinese, but you know which breed most likely is? The Japanese Chin. Again, it is extremely old breed, but almost all the sources state, that the Japanese Chin was created in China from where it got into Japan. There are several theories about its route from China to Japan and it is very possible that they were given to Japanese royalty as gift from Chinese or Koreans.

I already mentioned the Xoloitzcuintli in this video, and guess what? This breed has also little bit misleading english name. The Xoloitzcuintli is named as Mexican Hairless Dog in english speaking countries, but even though they might be hairless, there is also a coated variety of this breed. And it is pretty confusing to see a fully coated dog with the name Mexican Hairless dog.

Now i will mention three Tibetan dogs – the Tibetan Terrier, Spaniel and Mastiff. In this case, the geographical name is correct, they are all from Tibet. The problem is, that the Tibetan Terrier is not exactly a terrier, the Tibetan Spaniel is not a Spaniel and the Tibetan Mastiff definitely is not a typical mastiff.

Lets start with the Tibetan Spaniel. Spaniels are typically gun dogs used for hunting, while the Tibetan Spaniel is purely companion pet. The breed got its name Tibetan Spaniel probably because of its resemblance to some real hunting spaniels.

The Tibetan Mastiff was also called as Mastiff due to the resemblance to European mastiff dogs, mostly because of its large size. But on the first sight, it look much more like a mountain dog rather than mastiff and i would say that the mountain dog category fits much better to this breed.

And the Tibetan Terrier, despite its name, is not a member of the Terrier group and just like with the other two Tibetan breeds, the breed was given its english name by European travelers due to its resemblance to known terrier breeds.

Next we have the Old English Sheepdog. The breed definitely isnt old and technically, it is not a sheepdog neither. The breed is only few hundreads years old, which might sound like a lot, but still, compared to some ancient, thousands years old dog breed, it is a relative newcomer into the dogs world. And rather than sheepdog and herder, this breed is drover dog, as their utilization for which they were developed was driving sheep to the cattle market.
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This brings us to the last dog of this video, which is also the most popular one and it is the Great Dane. Because of its name, many people assume that the breed has Danish origin, which is not true, as the dog is of German origin.