Portuguese Water Dogs are originally from the Portuguese region of the Algarve, from where the breed expanded to all around Portugal's coast, where they were taught to herd fish into fishermen's nets, retrieve lost tackle or broken nets, and act as couriers from ship to ship, or ship to shore.

The closest relatives of the PWD and Spanish Water dog are widely thought to be the Standard Poodle. Like Poodles and several other water dog breeds, PWDs are intelligent, can have curly coats, have webbed toes for swimming, and do not shed.However, Portuguese Water Dogs are more robustly built, with stout legs, and can have a wavy coat instead of tightly curled.

Pea Creek Portuguese Water Dogs came about from a weekend in Arkansas shortly after the passing of our beloved dog that had been with us for 9 years.   Barbie was a dog that our youngest daughter, Ava, received when she was really young. Ava took several weeks to research characteristics she was looking for in a new dog and settled on the Portuguese Water Dog.  After finding the breeder in Alabama, we drove overnight to pick out one of the remaining 5 puppies.  We settled on Bettie, the mother of our first litter and we’ve been hooked ever since.