The Polish Lowland Sheepdog is known throughout Europe by the name PON, which derives from its Polish name - Polski Owczarek Nizinny.

The ancestor of the PON arrived in the Polish lowlands with the nomads coming from the Caspian Sea area in the 1200s. There is a reference to the Polish Lowland Sheepdog in literature as early as the 1500s, when a ship owned by K. Grabski sailed from Gdansk to Scotland with grain to exchange for sheep. With him he also took 6 lo wland sheepdogs, trading 3 of them with a Scottish shepherd for a ram and ewe. The shepherd had admired the dogs for their excellent work.

At the beginning of 1900s, there was a decline in sheep-farming and a Polish princess, Princess Grocholska started collecting some of the best specimens of sheepdog she could find to breed at her kennels on her estate in Planta (eastern Poland). The first official show appearance of the PON took place in a farm animal exhibition in 1924, when the princess exhibited two of her dogs. Mesdames Wanda and Rosa Zoltowskie started breeding in the 1930s, their dogs originating from Planta. These ladies laid the foundations of the breed.

Unfortunately the two kennels ceased breeding activities during the Second World War. New attempts to resurrect the breed started in Bydgoszcz with Mrs. Kuionowicz (her kennels existed until 1956) and the pillar of the breed veterinary surgeon Dr. Danuta Hryniewicz. Dr. Hryniewicz managed to find dogs originating from the early famous kennels and began her own breeding line under the affix 'Kordegarda', which is still well known among PON people today. It took 15 years after the second World War to get the breed established. Her famous dog 'Smok z Kordegardy' became the true 'father of the breed'.

In 1959 the FCI accepted the PON as a new breed, and the actual breed standard was published in the 1960s. In the 1970s they gained wider popularity in Poland and later, the rest of Europe.

The PON has travelled almost all over the world since then. In the 1960s it was first imported into East Germany, and later to West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. The number of PONs in these countries has risen to more than 4000 now. The breed was first presented in the UK in 1985 and thanks to breeder Megan Butler (Megsflocks) there are almost 1000 of these dogs in Great Britain to date.

Denmark was the first of the Northern Countries to begin breeding PONs, in the early 1980s. It was not until 1984 when the first PON's were imported to Norway and from there to Sweden.

Today the number of PON's in Poland may well exceed 3000. Even though representatives of the breed can be found in Europe, America and Australia, the breed is still comparatively rare.