Indian and subcontinental dog breeds

The breeds

These breeds evolved here. They handle the climate, they cost less than imports, and the published information about several of them is thin, contested or simply wrong.

Bakharwal DogKashmir's livestock guardian, kept by Gujjar and Bakarwal herders on the Pir Panjal. Widely called endangered, rarely actually...Banjara HoundThe sighthound of the nomadic Banjara of Maharashtra, described in hound literature for a century and recognised by no kennel...Bully KuttaA giant subcontinental guardian with an ugly modern reputation. Most of what circulates about this breed online is written by or...ChangkhiThe livestock guardian of the Changpa nomads of the Changthang plateau, and the fifth dog breed India has ever registered....ChippiparaiTamil Nadu's royal coursing hound, thought to descend from the Saluki, widely held to be the most trainable of India's native...Gull DongA Pakistani bandog created for the fighting pit, sold in India under at least eight different names, and described so...Gull TerrierA white, erect-eared bull terrier type of the Punjab, primarily Pakistani rather than Indian, and used in dog fighting on both...Haofa (Tangkhul Hui)Manipur's Tangkhul hound, the one Indian breed with a real published characterisation study behind it. Here is what the study...Himalayan SheepdogIndia's high-altitude livestock guardian, wrapped in a coat built for snow. Registered, stamped, celebrated, and one of the worst...Indian Pariah DogIndia's native landrace dog, shaped by natural selection rather than breeders. It outlives most imported breeds, carries almost...Indian SpitzThe breed India built for itself. Cheaper than almost anything else, genuinely suited to a hot climate, one of the healthiest...Janwal PashmiA feathered Marathwada landrace that 207 dogs' worth of MAFSU measurements say is not a Mudhol Hound. Bonbeno reads the paper,...JonangiA short-coated Andhra Pradesh landrace that herded ducks around Kolleru Lake, lost its job to aquaculture, and was driven close...KaikadiA small, lean hunting sighthound from Maharashtra, kept by the nomadic Kaikadi community to take hare and vermin and to guard...KanniTamil Nadu's black-and-tan coursing hound, once sent with a bride as her guardian, counted at roughly 3,000 animals by the...KombaiTamil Nadu's boar-hunting guard dog, bred by the Maravar warrior community and later carried into battle against British troops....Mahratta HoundIndia's least documented sighthound, and the one whose name causes the most confusion. Wikipedia treats it as its own breed. Much...Mudhol HoundKarnataka's sighthound, gifted to King George V a century ago and now serving with the Indian Army, the Air Force and the Prime...RajapalayamIndia's white sighthound, bred in Tamil Nadu to hunt wild boar and nearly lost in the 1980s. Cheaper than every imported breed,...Rampur GreyhoundNorth India's royal sighthound, bred by the Nawabs of Rampur and put on an India Post stamp in 2005. Published prices for the...Sarail HoundBangladesh's only native breed, from Sarail in Brahmanbaria. A short-coated lowland sighthound, widely called nearly extinct, and...Sinhala HoundSri Lanka's indigenous dog, related to the Indian Pariah Dog and shaped by the same tropical pressures. Published figures for its...VikhanA lighter, faster livestock guardian of the Chitral valleys and, by report, Himachal Pradesh. Documented by two books, registered...

Compare the breeds side by side

To compare these 23 breeds directly, read across the table rather than down the guides. Heat tolerance is a Bonbeno rating out of 5 for Indian conditions, and the reasoning behind each one sits on the breed's own page.

What matters in this group

The points below are what the evidence on these 23 guides actually supports, not what the category is assumed to mean.

• This is the part of the encyclopedia no international site can match, and the part where the research was hardest. For several of these breeds the circulating photographs are of a different dog entirely, published measurements contradict each other, and the most-shared history traces to a single unsourced blog post.
• Where Bonbeno could not verify a photograph, the page ships without one and says why. Where sources disagree, both figures are printed. Where no reliable data exists, the page says so instead of borrowing a number from a Western breed.
• The Indian Pariah Dog deserves particular attention. It is free to adopt, the best heat-adapted dog in the country, and the subject of more casual misinformation than any pedigree breed on this site.