Padfoot/Newfie

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Lorrie stardancer wrote:

<< What kind of dog is Padfoot? Pureblood? Heinz 57? Is there 
any interview with JKR where she says? I have Moony, Wormtail, 
and Prongs, but my beloved Padfoot is missing! So...HELP! :) The 
drawing in GoF "Padfoot Returns" I can't identify. My Dad thinks 
Newfoundland, but it could be an Irish Wolfhound, or something else 
entirely. >>

JKR said Padfoot is just a big black mutt, but I think he looks more 
like a Newfie than anything else (as Steve bboy_mn indicated, the 
Japanese mastiff isn't shaggy enough).

http://www.angelfire.com/magic/aberforthsgoat/archive/Oct00_LiveChat_B
arnesNoble.htm
<<[I picture Padfoot as a cross between a Scottish deerhound and a 
Newfoundland, did you have a particular breed of dog pictured when 
you created him?] Not really. I see him more as a large, bear-like 
mongrel. >>

Alice Love Cats wrote:

<< It would probably be a Newfoundland, though to me he will always 
remain a slightly Heinz 57-ed Labradorish creature. (Black Labrador 
in appearance, though bigger.) >>

When I went reading websites about dogs to try to find out what breed 
Padfoot is, I discovered that Newfies and Labs are closely related 
(Labrador is part of the province of Newfoundland), as their 19th 
century ancestors were called "the greater St. Johns dog" and "the 
lesser St. Johns dog". Oh, relative to what Steve bboy_mn said, the 
Great Pyrenees (the president of my old college had one. The earth 
shook when he barked: it was perceived as a throbbing in one's bones, 
not as a sound) is thought to have been an ancestor of the St. Johns 
dogs, along with something named Portuguese Water Dog, and probably 
others. 

Some of the ancestral dogs were brought by Basque whalers, who were 
very active in Labrador from 1500 on (no written proof that they were 
there before 1492) and some people believe that some of the ancestral 
dogs had been brought by the Vikings whose encampment at 
L'Ainse-de-something is in Newfoundland. There seems to be dispute 
whether some of the ancestors were Native American dogs (other than 
who else would have kept the Viking dogs from 1000 CE to 1500 CE 
after the Vikings left?).

My other interest in searching dog websites was my *unsuccessful* 
effort to find the name of a breed of dog that was fashionable in New 
York City around 1983 that looked like teddybears. I saw dozens of 
them being walked, some golden, some brown, some reddish, some black, 
all looking rather like Chows except they looked to be about 20 
pounds. Some sort of Chow/Pom cross?