By our reckoning, Croatia can claim five native dog breeds, and one of them is the Posavac Hound. This hound’s name literally means Scenthound from the Sava Valley, and while some believe the breed originated in Yugoslavia in the 1700s, there are frescoes from the 15th century depicting dogs that resemble the modern Posavac. Its ancestry is believed to be Molossian hunting dogs crossed with imported Egyptian hounds. Egyptian? This is not as far fetched as it sounds. Yugoslavian ports on the Adriatic were major trading centers for Phoenicians, and all slavic hounds have roots reaching back into ancient times. The resulting hounds called “boskini” were sold by Croatians in neighboring regions. These scenting dogs would come to be admired as superb trackers with strong, high voices that carried on the plains of the Sava River.

Registrations for the stud book were first taken in 1929, and the FCI recognized the dog as the Kras Posavac Basin Hound (or Karst Hound) in 1955, its name being changed to Posavac Hound in 1969 (sometimes seen as Posavaz Hound). That’s the name by which the United Kennel Club accepted the breed in 2006.

Image of young Posavac Hound bitch by Strojovodjazg under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.