The ancient breed of Argos, Odysseus' loyal dog in 'The Odyssey' movie

Pat Mueller, USA TODAYThu, July 23, 2026 at 8:12 PM UTC

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When Christopher Nolan needed a dog to play Argos, the aging, loyal hound who recognizes Odysseus after 20 years and dies peacefully the moment his master finally comes home, filmmakers for "The Odyssey" turned to a breed nearly as old as the story itself: the Portuguese podengo.

John Leguizamo, who spent the most time on screen with Argos in his role of Eumaeus, confirmed in a July 19 interview with the Today Show that the dog actor was indeed a podengo.

It's a fitting choice. Few dog breeds carry a lineage stretching back far enough to plausibly have existed in Homer's world, but the podengo comes close.

A breed older than most nations

The Portuguese podengo's ancestors are believed to have arrived in Portugal after 600 BC, brought by Phoenician traders sailing the Mediterranean and around the African coast, according to the American Kennel Club. The Northern Portuguese Podengo Association's (NPPA) website said the breed's history is closely tied to Portugal's reconquest of its territory from the Moors in the 13th century — a turning point that helped set the stage for Portuguese podengo pequeños to later join explorer ships as skilled ratters during the Age of Discovery.

Today, the podengo is considered a national treasure in Portugal, with documented history spanning more than a thousand years.

Interestingly, "podengo" isn't even a breed-specific name. The Portuguese language historically had no word for "hound," so "podengo" became the general term for primitive, prick-eared hunting dogs distributed around the Mediterranean by Phoenician traders roughly 2,000 years ago, according to Showsight Magazine's report on the breed's history. In England, where the breed has also gained a following, it's sometimes called the "Warren hound."

Three sizes, one ancient family

Podengos come in three distinct sizes, pequeño (small), medio (medium) and grande (large), each historically bred to hunt different prey, and traditionally kept separate to preserve the variety of sizes, WebMD's breakdown of the breed stated.

The grande was built to chase down boar and deer, wearing prey out over long pursuits until hunters could catch up. The medio specialized in flushing and retrieving rabbits with a stalking style reminiscent of a cat. The pequeño, the smallest of the three, doubled as both a rabbit hunter and a skilled ratter, a job that ultimately took it well beyond Portugal's borders.

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As referenced above, pequeños played a key role as onboard exterminators during long ocean voyages during the Age of Discovery. In the process, according to Showsight Magazine, this helped spread podengo bloodlines to ports and colonies around the world, making this small hunting dog an unlikely footnote in the story of global exploration.

What makes a podengo a podengo

Physically, the breed is easy to spot once you know the traits. The United Kennel Club's breed standards list these notable features: A wedge-shaped head, sharply erect ears, and a curved, sickle-shaped tail.

Coats come in two varieties, per WebMD, a short, dense, double-layered smooth coat, or a rougher, bearded wire-haired coat with no undercoat.

What sets the Podengo apart from most hound breeds isn't just its look, though. It hunts using a coordinated combination of scent, sight and hearing rather than overly relying on just one sense.

Temperament-wise, Podengos are intelligent, independent, and fiercely loyal to their families, the same qualities that made the breed such a natural fit to portray Argos, a dog defined entirely by loyalty across two decades of absence. The AKC even rated them a five out of five when it comes to affection of their trusted companions.

From ancient hunting dog to modern-day movie star

The Podengo's path to recognition has been a slow climb through the world's major kennel clubs. The United Kennel Club recognized the breed in 2006, and the AKC followed in 2013, placing it in the miscellaneous classification before eventually splitting the breed into two categories: the Portuguese podengo pequeño and the Portuguese podengo, which covers both the medio and grande sizes since they can appear in the same litter.

Now, thanks to Nolan's big-screen adaptation of Homer's epic, a hunting breed that once cleared rats off Portuguese exploration ships and hunted boar across the Iberian countryside is getting a rare moment in the modern spotlight, playing arguably the most famous loyal dog in Western literature nearly 3,000 years after the story was first told.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The ancient breed behind Argos, Odysseus' loyal dog in 'The Odyssey'

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