Rottweiler

They descended from ancient Roman drover dogs that marched across Europe alongside Roman legions to guard and herd cattle herds.

In the town of Rottweil Germany butcher shops relied on these dogs to guard their money pouches tying the day's cash securely around the dogs' necks.

The Rottweiler was originally used as a herding dog and to pull carts for butchers.

The breed's comeback came from an unlikely source: German police departments in the early 1900s discovered Rottweilers made excellent police dogs, and that new job saved the breed from disappearing entirely.

The Rottweiler nearly went extinct in the late 1800s once railways replaced long cattle drives and made the breed's original job obsolete — by 1882, only a single Rottweiler reportedly showed up at a dog show in Heilbronn, Germany.