Cane Corso Stories and Testimonials

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Whenever the elder south Italians are interviewed, they always have a great Cane Corso story to tell. Some are vey credible and some might be "slightly" exaggerated and even fantastic. They are all told with the praise and love to this great breed by people who spend the life with them, breeding them or working with them. Cane Corso Pages wishes to all the people who are sharing them with us. These stories are a great source to understanding Cane Corso.

A farmer lived with his family in the mountains. Once they travelled a long way to bathe in the ocean. Their Cane Corso, who had never before seen the ocean, was scared when he saw the family "disappearing" into the waves. Immediately, he jumped in the water, gently held the people by their shoulders an dragged them back on the shore. No ocean was going take away his family!

Another great story told to prove that the Corso is a very intelligent dog is about peasant who went to the market. At the market there was a man who sold vases. Now the peasant couldn't make up his mind on which vase to buy. So he made his Corso decide for him, by letting it go to the vases and the first vase the dog found would be the one he would buy. Well the dog went directly to a specific vase far away. The salesman laughed very much and said to the man that this really was an intelligent dog... the vase it found was actually the one used by the salesman to keep his money in.

A guardian said that he could let his dog patrol on its own. It knew the places they were to control and seached them all one by one.

Somewhere in the south a man trained his Corso to steal melons from his neighbor's property. It did it in the evening and he even trained it to crawl on its stomach so that the neighbor wouldn't discover how the fruits disappeared from the plants.

In a small countrytown they had the right definition of fresh milk. The milkman walked around the houses with his cows. He stopped at all the houses and when the families wanted to buy milk they had it milked before their eyes. The milkman had a handful of cows and two Cane Corsos. A rope was tied to each of the cows' horns. And the dogs dragged them with these ropes. If a cow tried to run away or wouldn't stand still the other Corso would immediately take the other rope and together the dogs had total control of the cows.

In another village a man had a Corso who would bring his son to and from school. This dog went by itself to pick up the boy each day when school ended.
A breeder and cattleman from Manfredonia always had Corsos to help control the beasts and protect his property. Once a young man from the village who came to see a litter of puppies, entered the property while nobody was home. The Corso "on duty" knew this young man very well, but as soon as he entered the dog jumped up, pushed him and didn't allow him to move before the family came back home. As soon as the owner came back and ordered the dog to set the poor guy free, it just behaved normally and acted friendly towards him again.

 

There are lots of stories about Cane Corsos stopping bulls going crazy at market places. The dogs immediately jumped up and got a grip in the animals lips, snout or ears (The most vulnerable parts on the bull). When the dog had a good grip ("Presa") it locked its jaws and this would force the bull down on its knees. The dog did not let go of its grip before the people had control of the bull again.

Last time in Italy I was very curious about how the hunters trained the Cane Corso for boar hunting. Now, this is a well kept secret among the hunters and usually they do not share it with anyone. Also for this reason there are no pictures or video of Corsos hunting boar. In Italy this is confidential information that you do not tell outsiders - no matter how interested they may be in dogs. Especially in the isolated parts of the South people are very suspicious to strangers (probably because involvement of strangers never brought anything good to the region).
A breeder managed to get some information from a hunter until the hunter's
friends stopped the conversation. This is what he was told before the talkative hunter immediately got quiet, after his hunting friends said "Are these things to tell a stranger?"
After a boar hunt, they take the skin from the boar and make a "stuffed boar". It is very important that the skin keeps the smell of wild game. This "boar" is placed on wheels on a kind of track, and with ropes the "thing" can be rolled back and forth. Now the young dog is presented to the fake boar and when they start moving it the dog almost automatically attacks the boar because of its hunting instinct. At this point the other hunters told they guy to 'shut up'. Flavio Bruno says that the dogs are trained by bringing a young Corso directly on the hunt with other experienced dogs. Then by looking at the experienced dogs it learns. Very many dogs die on
these hunts as the boar is a very dangerous animal and an unexperienced
dog could easily lose its life.

Thanks to the late Mr. Alfonso Comer (shepherd from Molise) it is no longer a secret how the Cane Corso was used in the hunt on badger. It could be done in with Corsos alone, or together with tracking dogs such as the Segucio Italiano. If the hunter only used a Cane Corso, he would need to know the location of the animal's burrow. The hunting only took place during full moon, allowing the hunter to see better. Late at night, when the badger would be too far from the burrow to escape into it, the hunter went to the area and let his dogs loose. They would independently track, capture and kill the badgers. If hunting in unknown terrain, the hunter used the Segucio
to track the badger. When they found the animals they would bark, which was the signal to the hunter to set the Corsos loose. All the hunter had to do now was run to the place, where he would usually find the badger already killed by the dogs. For hunting, the light fawn Cane Corso was always preferred. These dogs are easy to see in the darkness, and furthermore, it would be easier to distinguish the dogs from the game. The
brindled dogs could be especially hard to distinguish from a boar when the hunter would try to kill the animal.

Mr. Alfonso Comer with the dog Bruno after badgerhunt.

If You have a good Cane Corso story or experience to share with us all please mail it to me. This page is updated everytime a good Cane Corso story is mailed to us.

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