Polish Lowland Sheepdog

Every Polish Lowland Sheepdog in the world descends from a single dog. Its name was Smok, which is Polish for “Dragon”. Not the dragon of Polish legend, the one that lived under Wawel Castle in Kraków and devoured sheep: this one was shaggy, knee-high, and looked after sheep instead of eating them. After the Second World War almost nothing was left of the breed, and it was rebuilt by a veterinary surgeon, Dr Danuta Hryniewicz, starting with that very dog. In the 1950s Smok sired the first ten litters. The standard was written in his image and recognised by the international federation in 1959. Every PON, as the breed is known for short, is therefore a direct descendant of the Dragon, which is worth remembering before you start wondering at its habits.

The breed is far older than its paperwork. On the Polish lowlands two kinds of dog worked with the flocks: large white ones for guarding, and small shaggy ones for herding, because the big dogs frightened the sheep and could be too rough with the lambs. An old story has it that in 1514 a ship from Gdańsk carried grain and six such dogs to Scotland, and a local shepherd gave a ram and a ewe for three of them; the Scottish Bearded Collie is said to descend from them. They were first shown in public in Warsaw in 1924, at an event called the Show of Poultry, Pigeons and Dogs. In that order. From occupied Warsaw also comes the story of a bitch named Psyche, who was said to sense air raids and warn people by barking before the sirens sounded. It cannot be verified, but the reputation of dogs that know in advance has stayed with the breed ever since. The abbreviation PON, meanwhile, has caught on worldwide: the American breed club, founded in 1987, has the Polish words “Polski Owczarek Nizinny” in its name.

What the PON inherited from the Dragon is above all an attitude to treasure. It steals and it hides. Socks, the remote control, a wooden spoon, a guest's glove: all of these vanish and end up in a lair it sets up behind the sofa or under the bed, whose contents it remembers down to the last item. After a walk it brings home half the park in its coat — leaves, twigs and burrs — and counts that as loot too. Memory, in fact, is its second speciality: it learns fast and remembers everything, good and bad. A PON does not sulk. A PON takes notes. People who know the breed say it plays chess where other dogs play draughts, which in practice means it is two moves ahead of you and knows where you put the treats. On top of that it barks loudly and often, keeps strangers at arm's length, and looks at the world from behind a fringe so thick that you can never tell whether it is asleep or watching you. It is usually watching.

The most important treasure, however, cannot be hidden under the bed. Every dragon has a hoard, and this one keeps it in plain sight: it is you, the household. In the evening the PON takes stock. It walks through the flat, looks into every room and checks who is where. If someone is missing it sits by the door and waits; it settles only when everyone is under one roof. Then it lies down where it can keep an eye on its entire holdings, and from under the fringe that nobody but you ever brushes aside a pair of hazel eyes looks out. Fairy tales teach that a dragon guards gold. This one guards people, and it is the only treasure it never hides.

The Wawel dragon, as every Polish child knows, ate without a second thought everything that was put in front of it. Its shaggy namesake takes exactly the same approach to food, so the thinking has to be done by you. A PON puts on weight easily, the coat hides it, and keeping it at a healthy weight is one of the simplest ways to help it live longer. An adult dog of eighteen kilos needs just under a thousand kilocalories a day, which is less than the amount of fur suggests.

One evening, do what it does every day: look around the room and count who is there. If it is everyone, you are looking at the hoard.

The Dragon is lying in the doorway, guarding it.