The Tornjak () or Bosnian Shepherd Dog, is a breed of livestock guardian dog native to Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of Croatia. The name comes from the local word for a sheep pen, "". The foundation stock is made up from genetically homogeneous landrace shepherding dogs dispersed in the mountains and valleys of the region. They are molosser-type mountain dogs, similar to other livestock guardian breeds of the region, the Šarplaninac, Bucovina Shepherd Dog, and the Greek Shepherd. History Tornjaks belong to the rare livestock protection breeds and share many characteristics with other livestock guarding dogs. The Tornjak breed was first mentioned in the 11th century, and was the transhumance dog of the medieval Vlach shepherds of Bosnia. Descriptions of the Tornjak were found in the writings of Peter Horvat, bishop of Đakovo, Croatia, which date back to the year 1374, and those descriptions were also found in the writings of Peter Lukić, Canon of the Đakovo diocese, which were written in 1752. To this day, these dogs are called Toraši (Torashi) in the surroundings of the city of Sinj and on the Kamešnica mountain, whereas the shepherds of the Dinara-mountains call them Dinarci. Descriptions of Tornjaks from these documents are similar to modern descriptions, except for the name of the breed, which was Bosanski Ovčar, meaning Bosnian Shepherd Dog. It was also called the Hrvatski pas planinac, meaning Croatian mountain dog. The dogs in these documents were described similarly as such: a protective guarding dog which keeps and watches all that their owners ask them, but is highly intelligent and selectively bred to be without excessive aggression. They are also said to be pleasant toward strangers that they meet outside of their domain. It is considered that dogs of the Tornjak's type have existed in the area around and in Dinarides (Dinaric Alps), especially in the region around Vlašić (close to the city of Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina) as a central area of the region since the Roman times. The Romans used their dogs for war and as guardians, as well as for fighting in the arena. Although the Tornjak is a very old breed, it gradually vanished with the vanishing of nomadic sheep herding. In the early 1970s, a group of local cynologists began to collect the remaining dogs which best corresponded to the old writings about the breed. Tornjaks were first imported to the UK in