It is a special thing to see a rare breed at work, so when the video clip below was passed along to us by a friend, we were thrilled:

In case you need a little help, the dogs in the video are Tibetan Mastiffs working on the Tibetan Plateau, and if you’re wondering to yourself what exactly are the dogs are doing that counts as “work,” you should know this breed’s traditional role as a protector of his master, his master’s tent or village, of the animals they owned (such as the yak in the video), and of the caravans in which they traveled. They defended what was theirs against marauders, and against predators such as wolves, mustelids, tigers, and snow leopards.

Old monks of Tibet say that snow leopards bred with wolves produced the Tibetan Mastiff, a colorful, if not whimsical legend. We do know that skulls of the breed have been found that date from the Stone and Bronze ages, and that the earliest written proof of the TM dates to 1100 B.C. in China. These are the dogs that likely accompanied the armies of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan into battle, but accurate records of the genetic heritage of the dogs are non-existent given its age. Indeed, the Tibetan Mastiff may be the oldest large breed in existence.

If you ever get a chance to meet a TM in person, do it!  You would be getting acquainted with a hugely important piece of canine history, a breed considered by many to be the basic stock from which most modern large working breeds have developed, and that’s a big deal.

Image: Tibetan Mastiff/Deposit Photo