The Kintamani is a dog native to the Indonesian island of Bali. It is a popular pet for the Balinese and locally Bali's only official breed and efforts are currently under way to have the dog accepted by the Federation Cynologique Internationale as a recognized breed. It is an evolving breed indigenous to the Kintamani region which evolved from the local Bali street dogs, which are rather a feral random-bred landrace distinctive to Bali.
History
Genetic studies of the breed have shown that has probably evolved from local Balinese feral dogs, and is distantly related to other Asian breeds. Folklore indicates that the Kintamani began with a Chow Chow around 600 years ago. The Kintamani achieved national recognition as a distinct dog breed in April 2006.
It is also possible that the Kintamani Dog came with the Javanese invaders from the kingdom of Majapahit in 1343 or with the Javanese refugees of the civil war in the 15th century. But of all the hypotheses, about the origins of the Kintamani Dog, only one is really plausible: that sometime between the 12th and the 16th century a Chinese trader named Lee landed in Singaraja in Northern Bali, bringing with him a Chow Chow dog which bred with the local Balinese feral dogs. Lee later in settled in the Kintamani region and raised his family there. Evidence that the Lee family lived in Kintamani exists in the form of a Chinese temple in which people of the Confucian faith still worship.
