If you think there are only four American breeds of dog, you have your head up your butt.
“It is also one of only four breeds known to be of American origin.” From the wikipedia entry on the Plott hound. This might be one of the dumbest statements ever written on dogs in history.
I can name more than four breeds that are of American origin. If it is a breed of coonhound, then it is of American origin, even if its name is “English coonhound.” There are no raccoons in England, so the English wouldn’t be breeding coonhounds, would they? Black and tan, Treeing Walker, English, Redbone, and Plott (which is not necessarily a coonhound in its original purpose).
Then there’s the monstrosity of dogs. The American cocker spaniel or, as I call it, the American biting spaniel. This breed is called a cocker spaniel in the US, as if it were the original type for this dog. However, the puffed up poodle dog is a recent creation that happened in the United States.
Then there are the curs. We can’t call those breeds, though, because curs are still bred for their purpose. And some people have been incorrectly advised that cur means mixed breed. This is not the case. Curs are working dogs. They exist in various sorts of landraces. Most are mixture of hound and herding dogs, while others have some mastiff, Native American dog, or even bull terrier thrown in. If we were to consider the various cur dogs breeds, then we’d have at least a dozen American dogs.
Then we have the Alaskan malamute– that’s an American dog.
The Carolina dog– that’s another American dog.
The pit bull is American– it was our national dog for many years.
The boston terrier– a toy bulldog from Beacon Hill.
Rat terrier– a ratting terrier from America, heavily promoted by Teddy Roosevelt.
The American bulldog and the Alapaha bulldog are both American.
Who could forget the Chesapeake Bay Retriever? Also American.
This list is far from exhaustive, but it tells me that whoever wrote that statement is a fool.
you can add toy fox terriers to that. American hairless terriers along that same family tree.
And I know there are at least a dozen other america breeds I’ve personally met but I’d have to look at a list to name them all.
American Eskimo dogs, Australian shepherds, McNab shepherds too. I have a feeling that the list could go on for quite a while.
What a coincidence. Didn’t expect to see curs mentioned on your blog today. This morning, the anatolian rescue listserv mentioned an ASD/black mouth cur mix that is in need of rescue. And, out of curiosity, I googled curs and learned a bit. Here’s the dog I’m talking about. Looks like an interesting mix: http://anatolianshepherdrescue.blogspot.com/2009/01/oklahoma-city-anatolian-needs-foster-or.html
Black mouth cur is the same landrace as Old Yeller, not the dog in the film, the dog in the book.
Both the English and Australian Shepherds are of American Origin. And the McNab dog. They’re not “native” but then again, nothing is native to anywhere if you want to get technical.
Australian shepherds may have some Australian dogs in them (like the German collie or koolie, so named because German settlers had them.) However, they should be called the American bob-tailed shepherd but then that interferes with the McNab.
The only truly native ones on the list are the Carolina dog and the curs that have Native American dog in them.
‘Chinese’ Cresteds are also American. =)
The cool thing about Wikipedia is that you can always edit the incorrect stuff.
Catahoula leopard dog?
That is a cur dog. I call them Catahoula curs, and they are in the cur family.
Read this on the Catahoula cur:
http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2009/01/good-old-lessons-from-good-old-timers.html
I definitely count this as an American breed.
Do you regard the various cur dogs (e.g. Catahoula; Carolina) as different breeds?
I regard them as separate landraces, which is different from a breed in that they don’t have closed registries… yet. The local cur landrace here has been made into a breed, the Mountain Cur, is a bona fide breed. I define a breed as something with a closed registry that has foundation dogs within it. Some Catahoulas are in that category, but many working dogs in Louisiana are not in a registry at all. I think there is a move to make them all separate breeds. But I think the first thing to do is shatter this myth that a cur is a mixed breed. It’s a landrace that’s becoming a breed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landrace
The cur landraces are really the dogs that most Americans tend to overlook; however, they are derived from the only dogs that could 1. work and 2. survive on the frontier. These dogs were replaced with other breed “improved” European breeds, but in the rural areas, especially in the South, the “yaller” dogs and leopard dogs were still around. Old Yeller, the one in the book, was probably a cur variety called a black-mouthed cur, which can come in a yellow color with a black muzzle. It can be used exactly as the dog in the book was used.
The Catahoula is probably the best known of these dogs, perhaps because it has a cool name, “Catahoula Leopard dog,” and it is the state dog of Louisiana.
Dogs are just much better pets than cats :P