Natural History

From Recollections of my sea life … from 1808 to 1830 (1883) by John Harvey Boteler:

Captain Graham sent a party to the village and secured all canoes, so as to prevent the escape of any of the miscreants, and Chadwick some time after was sent over to Cuba for two bloodhounds; they were of a dull leaden colour, had smooth leather-like skins, no hair, the size of a common spaniel, but with longer legs, not very ugly, only very fierce eyes (pg. 116).

These dogs don’t sound like the mastiff-type dogs that were used to catch slaves in Cuba, the West Indies, and the American South.

Indeed, these dogs sound like they are part of the New World dominant hairless dogs that were ubiquitous throughout Latin America.

It is possible that the hairless dogs made it to Cuba before the Spanish conquest, but it is probably more likely that they were introduced to Cuba after Mexico became part of the Spanish Empire.

This dominant hairless trait originated in Mexico 4,000 years ago. All dogs with this gene have some ancestor that was living in Mexico at some point, which means the Chinese crested dog isn’t Chinese. However, the Portuguese and Spanish Empires did spread these dogs throughout the world.

But hairless dogs did make it to South America before the Spanish Conquest. The earliest depictions of hairless dogs in Peru date to 750 A.D., so it might have been possible for hairless dogs to have reached Cuba during the Pre-Columbian Period.  There are references to hairless dogs of Mexico and Cuba, but I cannot find any suggestion that Taino of Cuba had them. The only indigenous breed of Cuba was the so-called “mute dog.”

There are hairless dogs in Cuba today, which may or may not be derived from more modern xoloitzcuinltis.

Hairless dog in Cuba.

(Source for image)

Note the variance in type with this dog and the one pictured above it.

(Source for image)

These dogs are much more robust in build than the typical xoloitzcuintli.

(Source for image)

Although these dogs were not of the type usually called Cuban bloodhounds, they were quite successful in there pursuit of pirates, who were using the Isle of Pines (La Isla de Juventud) as a base to attack British ships in the West Indies. Boteler wrote of these bloodhounds  that they were quite useful after they began to kill pirates in skirmishes, and they began to run and hide from their pursuers:

Several very stirring encounters took place, I have no clear recollection of them as told me by Chadwick, they were every one most thrilling. It was not till after the death of ten or more that the bloodhounds were sent for, and a few more scented out. The last found was the captain, one evening a marine had taken his kettle to a stream among rocks some distance off, and there came upon a man washing the wounded stump of his arm. He started to run, the marine fired and missed, it was late and getting dark but they were sure of him now, and the hounds next morning were put on his scent and instantly took it up and with one sharp bark or yell, silently set off in pursuit. In a short time they were heard baying, and when the party came up there was the captain lying dead and stiff, most likely worn out with fatigue and mental agony as well as exhausted from his wound. What became of the hounds this deponent sayeth not. But what of the schooner itself, where could she be? The “pilot” led the way to the “lagoon” and after picking about with a pike or boat-hook, struck upon the vessel for there she was sunk, her masts cut away; she was raised and turned out a very beautiful craft (pg. 117).

This might be the only account of hairless dogs being used against pirates.

But it is still pretty interesting.

When I first came across this piece in my Google search, I thought it would lead me to Cuban bloodhounds, as we would normally know them in the historical literature.

However, the text revealed a very different story– and a very different kind of dog.