The Tobet (Kazakh: т бет, IPA: []), also known as the Kazakhstan mountain dog, is a molosser-type livestock guardian breed of dog with ancient origins in Kazakhstan. Its main function is to protect livestock from predators.
In Russia it has earned the nickname of "Volkodav" which means “wolf crusher”.
It can be employed to drive flocks of sheep or goats as well as herds of cattle or horses. It is also used to hunt boar together with tazy hounds (afghan hounds).
This is a large molosser athletic enough to keep up with a horse at full gallop.
During the era of the Soviet Union, Russian breeders created the so-called "Central Asian Ovcharka" by mixing several ancestral breeds of Asian molossers like the Alabai of Turkmenistan, the Tobet of Kazakhstan and the Torkuz of Uzbekistan.
The Tobet is one of the original central Asian molosser breeds.
Click here for the article: Wikipedia - Tobet
About the family of Livestock Guardian Dogs...
“To this day flocks are guarded in the hills of Asia, Europe and Africa* by powerful, robust dogs that are neither clumsy nor pacific. Despite the distances that separate them these breeds have much in common, and the Kuvasz is a member of this extended sheepdog family.”
From: Dr. Tibor Buzády, Dogs of Hungary, trans. Bernard Adams, Budapest, Hungary: Nóra Kiadó, 2002, p. 90.
*(and today also in North America, South America and Australia)