[AnAmericanMother]

Dalmatians go back to Croatia (originally called Dalmatia) and were first noted in the 1600s.

They have always been coaching dogs, running alongside and behind the coaches of the nobility and gentry. That simply got transferred to the fire wagons, which run a heavier horse than your average carriage.

[the OlLine Rebel]

If you want to see Dalmations the way they were meant to be, there is a brief show of them on “Meet Me in St. Louis” (sorry, it was just on the other day). During the Halloween sequence the prospective beau brings back the eldest sister in his small open carriage with 2 trotting underneath.