All right, who watched it? 
I never watch tv anymore and I just happened to check the tv listings for the National Geographic Channel and got really excited when I saw they had an hour special on dogs! It was SO interesting. They focused on Dogo Argentinos, Saluki's, dock-jumping Labs, obsessive Bull Terriers, blindess in Briards (which apparently is curable - so cool!), and even a new breed of dog being developed in Russia that is specifically 'designed' to be the best bomb-sniffing dog out there. I guess they bred Jackals (because they are so good at smelling from a distance) with many other things including Huskies, terriers, Eskies, and other breeds to get what they have now. There are only 40 of the dogs in existence because they are only used for the one purpose. So interesting, I'd never heard of them before!
The show did get me thinking about the new designer dog trend... the way they were talking about how in Victorian times new dog breeds started popping up everywhere and different ones were "trendy" in different places...sounds a whole lot like what's going on now with 'designer dogs' (not that it's changed my mind in the slightest how I feel about the current trends). They did specify however how all the breeds that popped up in Victorian times were all descended from the various working stock dogs that all held certain characteristics and traits. So there's your big difference right there, but still interesting to look at the parallels as well.
All in all it was a thoroughly interesting show - anyone who has any remote interest in dogs will thoroughly enjoy it. Dunno if you can find somewhere to watch it online, but if you can, it's totally worth it.