The Corsican dog: pure, corrupted, of mixed blood, and true-false

Paolo Breber

 

Canine races are object of fashion. We periodically witness the quick spread of one race or the other. Lately, it is the Huskies’ turn, whose first sponsor was the Agnelli’s family in Italy. Shortly before, and their course doesn’t drop yet, there were the Rottweiler and the Yorkshire Terrier. And then, who doesn’t remember the times of Collie, Cocker, Bobtail, and Bassetthound? Also our Corsican dog is entering under the spotlight of the great dog-loving world. We have already talked about thousands of subjects owned by private people, and even about examples in demand abroad. Considering that this race just counted some ten subjects in the ‘70s, it is about a marvelous regain. On the one hand, we must be delighted for the avoided race extinction. On the other hand, we have the impression that the product offered to the public has been a little rushed, since the negative genetic effect of decline, a period that runs from 1960 to about 1990, has not been completely removed yet. If we have a closer look at the history of successful races, like the above-mentioned ones, we have to notice that, at the time of sales launching, a completely refined product was introduced: healthy, harmonious and the ideal type. This is not a fortuitous and improvised result, but the fruit of a silent precursory period of preparation, at times long, where some highly competent breeders performed a program of planned selection. On the contrary, our love of dogs unfortunately is a sect emotionally very loaded where the followers believe that competency comes from intensity of passion. If we add to this psychological ingredient the strong business interests, it becomes very difficult to hold speeches with a scientific logic based on experimentation, examination, and neutral point of view.

Let’s analyze now the clashes in today’s Corsican dog. First, we have to distinguish between the heterogeneity defined by the race’s internal variability and the heterogeneity due to crossbreeding outside its race.

Internal heterogeneity of the race

The desire of having a deep morphologic uniformity is distinctive of modern love of dogs that gives predominant, often exclusive importance to appearance, i.e., to physical beauty, which is an end in itself. This is exactly the opposite to the ancients’ point of view. In order to describe a race, the ancients were talking about race function and saw in its morphologic characteristics a reflection of capabilities; therefore, beauty was a symbol of cleverness. Only domestic animals intended as a meal were appreciated directly on volumes and bodily relationships (e.g., the pork’s layer of lard, the leg of a young beef, etc.). Canine selection was made on the basis of efficiency at work, therefore only the best dogs were allowed to procreate. This selection system leads to morphologic uniformity, but in a less exasperated manner, if compared to the selection that directly acts on anatomy. A canine population that lives a defined ecology and is systematically selected to perform a specific function will acquire, as time goes by, a morphologic homogeneity as well. There are races which are still selected this way. The best known example is the working Collie who doesn’t even have a morphologic standard. It is exclusively and simply described on the basis of what it has to do. Those who take care of such race even avoid using the name Collie, by simply calling it Working Sheepdog. In so doing, they want to take distance as much as they can from the dog "Lassie" style, a dog-loving origin among the deepest ones. Another example is the "hard core" of the Pit Bull Terrier, the illegal one, where only the subjects that have won at least five fights are allowed to reproduce. Also here, in spite of the race’s absolute purity, we notice a morphologic variability that confuses the average dog lovers. The Mastiff from Abruzzi (better known as Maremma Abruzzi Sheepdog to dog lovers) is a further case of old-fashioned dog. The interest in dogs, conforming to its own frame of mind, has been making for several decades strong efforts to homogenize the race as much as possible. But, the reiterated inflow of "new" subjects taken from sheep rearing periodically puts everything back in "disarray", since it causes marked morphologic fluctuations. The shepherd is extremely demanding concerning work performance. They are more tolerant concerning beauty matters, except for the fur that must always be spotless. Height, proportions, and fur of the Mastiff from Abruzzi are shaped by its habitat and function. If the dog’s task is to chase off wolves and run daily across long distances on the mountains in a cold, windy, and rainy climate, it will then emerge a well defined physical type, but we won’t have a "series" dog, as dog lovers would like to have.

Talking about the Corsican Dog, since it is still a race in the old sense, exists here an evident internal homogeneity. To be precise it is not a symptom of crossbreeding, but simply the existence of different "families." During my personal research, I was able to define three nuclei of this race from their origins. These nuclei are three centers of breeding in purity that preserved the race without continuity from past times when this race was very spread out, up to today’s rebirth. This race went on untouched through three decades of crisis. These three families produce subjects of different physiognomy, but this doesn’t alter the fact that each family on its own perfectly expresses the Corsican Dog. Looking at the selection policy that dogs lovers want to adopt concerning race, is it right or wrong to eliminate these morphologic differences? If we want to eliminate them, we should first establish which type we want to choose, but we would enter here the sphere of personal tastes where the debate would never come to an end. Since every family, even though they are different, represents the authentic type, by eliminating peculiarities of the one type or the other it would be acting arbitrarily, and the dog breeders don’t have the power to act this way. In short, variability inside the races caused by the existence of more blood lines is a completely natural and fair situation.

The influence of ancient crossbreeding

In genetics, F1 is the crossbreeding between two different races intentionally made to create subjects with both parents’ qualities. This crossbreeding of the first generation gives the so called phenomenon of "being luxuriant," since the product offers high performances well above the two parents’. However, we only have this effect with the fruits of first generation, and we rapidly lose it in descendants of half-breeds; therefore, the action has to stop at the first crossbreed. Today, among the most widespread F1s, there are bovine animals for meat, Charollais x Maremma, that present the rapid growth of the first one bound to the rusticity of the second one. For canine races, the best-known example is the Gun dog Pointer where breeders want to bring together calm and obedience of the first one to the big nose of the second one. For the pack of Hunting dogs employed in hunting the wild boar, they very gladly use half-breeds, which are a lot stronger and efficacious than pure Hunting dogs. Also, the Corsican Dog was used in the past to create half-breed; this was maybe more diffused than the pure one. Maintaining a pack of pure blood was a costly commitment, a service, and a prestige due to rich men, while more rustic and equilibrated half-breeds were preferred as routine.

In the past, the Bourbons from Naples were assiduously practicing hunting of large game and with ample means of deployment. A large number of dogs were used. The dogs were differentiated by diverse tasks and aptitudes of which we have lost account for the most part today. A pack was not made, as we often believe, by all the same dogs but, on the contrary, it was consisting of a wide spectrum of types. We can see it well in paintings of ancient hunting scenes, like those painted by Hackert, and in a paradigmatic way in the statues of the fountain by the royal palace of Caserta. Some of these types were not pure, but they were F1s. The pure bred which gave birth to the F1s were: the Molossian hound, the Mastiff, the Greyhound, and the Hunting dog. From the various combinations of them, they were obtaining all the range of functional types, which were capable of satisfying the complex gradient of performances required by the big hunting. In Southern Italy, where royal places were located, memory is preserved, faint and unaware at this time, of such things, since local peoples were fully involved. To leave out of consideration internal subordinates, we have to take notice that men from surrounding towns were enrolled by the hundred as beaters in the hunting days. The dogs, when they were not used in the beatings, were living scattered in the surrounding farm houses.

So, we have the memory of the Straviere, from the crossbreeding Corsican x Greyhound that was resembling a coarse Doberman, or better, a Beauceron (drawing no. 1). Therefore, we had the Half-Corsican from Corsican and Mastiff from Abruzzi; it was resembling a lot to the pure Corsican, but then it was revealed by a too long and bristly fur (drawing no. 2). Moreover, we have to point out the half-breed coming from the Corsican and the Gun Dog or Hunting Dog, characterized by a refined muzzle and gentle fur. In the original intentions, all this crossbreeding was supposed to be an end in itself and didn’t have to procreate; but then, inevitably, there has been a loosening, some inaccuracy with the result that this foreign blood still today is spreading here and there into present subjects and menaces the purity of race.

Contemporary crossbreeding

Starting from the ‘60s, when there has been a drastic contraction in racial population’s consistency, many proprietors of only one subject found themselves in difficulty when coupling, since they were isolated from other proprietors by now very dispersed. Where was the male or the female to find to carry out the reproduction? Here is the recourse to the apparently most similar races, the easy-to-find Great Dane, Boxer, and Neapolitan Mastiff (drawings 3 and 4). This was a pragmatic solution that, however, caused a serious contamination.

Corruption was born from the practice of those who were having the Corsican dog fight; this is an activity that fortunately has been practically abandoned. Such people, always at the distressing research of the invincibility, were crossbreeding the Corsican with other Molossian races by trying to create a monster whose fighting nature, peculiar to this canine type, was supposed to be intensified by the F1 effects. When such products in this case were not giving the expected results, they were discarded without delay. In turn they were given to some individuals who ended up having them procreate and further diffuse genetic problems. Historically, the Corsican is not a professional fighter but only an amateur. Once, in the suburbs near Foggia, every carriage house, every store had its Corsican chained up, and every street had its king. It was inevitable that all these neighboring subjects, always so bellicose among themselves, had to lead their respective owners to challenges to establish whose dog was the "hardest." However, it was about some sporadic episodes between dogs who were very differently employed. Selecting dogs to fight dogs is an involutional phenomenon without any meaning in the real destiny of the dog, which is to help man with tasks that he wouldn’t be in the position of performing alone.

Finally, we have to consider the very recent attempts to falsify races, in short, for commercial purposes. With the recent news’ diffusion that in Southern Italy, precisely in Capitanata, a race of great value was rediscovered, a lot of dog lovers ran up longing to acquire examples. Some local cunning fellows who became aware of the price that such dog lovers were willing to pay, not having authentic subjects available, well thought about producing some dogs all over again by arranging, one at a time, more or less convincing mixings of Neapolitan Mastiff, Great Dane, Boxer, and Rottweiler. Unlike the above-described half-breeds, there is here no drop of blood from Corsican dog. It was not that difficult to swindle people who only had an unclear idea of what makes up the race. Obviously, this melting pot of Molossian races doesn’t give a similar Corsican genetically stable. If falsehood can deceive in itself, its offspring will reveal all the mess they got into.