The Corso and The Wild Boar
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This
is a compilation of information on hunting wild boar from Chapter VII ‘The Cane
Corso – Auxiliary of the Hunt’ of the book ‘IL Cane Corso’ by Prof. Casolino
and Dott. Gandolphi with permission. Any misinformation and misrepresentation
in this compilation is mine and mine only. The copy right of this compilation
belongs to The Cane Corso Pages Web Site and myself.
Hu Song Thursday, May 15, 2000, revised
December 01, 2001 and May 25.2003.
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Hunting with Corso-like dogs or with Corsi is
evident abundantly by the iconography of hunting themes in the Roman and the
medieval times, and in 19th century Naples. There are also
historical documents about hunting, in the form of poems titled La Cacchia,
during the Middle Ages.
A dog with morphology and attitudinal
characteristics like that of the Corso represented the perfect choice for
hunters of these periods. The Corso is athletic, sturdy, compact, with solid
and well-planted legs, an ample chest with a well-developed thorax for great
resistance to fatigue, a lombar region both short, broad, and muscular for a
free, almost cat-like movement, decisive and quick at attack. The Corso has a
tenacious and immovable grip due to his heavy neck and his steel jaws with the
mandible slightly curved, formidable teeth, slightly undershot, with large
canines and straight incisors.
The aristocrats and the wealthy kept entire
packs, with tens of subjects, often very specialized for different kinds of
game. Nevertheless, it was often the Cane Corsi of the massaro, the buttero
(cowboy), or the shepherd who, performing beyond their role of dogs for guard
and defend, was used for hunting, revealing their multiple talents and values.
Hunting in Italy consisted mostly of fur and
feather game and of wild animals hunting. They hunted bears, wolves, lynxes,
deer, fallow deer and roes. The wild boar has always been a favorite prey of
the hunters. The hunt, a bloody but fascinating practice, has attracted great
interest in every epoch. It may be for the value of its meat, its skin, its
bristles and its tusks. It may also be for the risks involved in the hunt and
the satisfaction from the kill.
Many works of art had reproduced the boar hunt
where a dog very similar to Corso is always the protagonist. The Roman villa of
Casale at Piazza Armerina (3rd-4th century A.D.) has a
splendid mosaic of a boar hunt. In this mosaic there is a cropped-ear fawn
molossoid, with extraordinarily likeness to the Corso, baring his teeth before
throwing himself upon the boar already wounded by the hunters’ pikes while
another dog which looks more like a sturdy sight hound attacked the animal’s
flank. This mosaic work displayed not only the extreme danger of boar hunting
but also the highly developed technique which can be deduced from the
composition of the pack of hunters and dogs.
‘Fernando
I On A Wild Boar Hunt’, the painting of Filippo Hackert (1737-1807) now in
the art museum of Capodimonte, depicts the 3 phases of the hunt on horseback.
There exists a table service of decorated porcelain plates of Capodimonte from
about 1750 showing a pack of Corsos, with proportions extraordinarily similar
to those modern dogs, blocking a large male boar, spurred on by the sound of
the horns of the mounted hunters.
It is relatively easy
for the pack of dogs to meet and down a sow but quite some effort with higher
risks to be taken for a grown male who normally live alone and often
accompanied by a younger male, idiomatically called his “squire”. The adult
male boar is a huge and strong animal armed with teeth sharp as knives as much
as 15 cm. long. This animal prefers flight when found and attacks whatever man
or dog near him when wounded. Using sudden attacks and changes of direction
during flight, this boar is perfectly capable of disembowelled and mortally
wounded both hunters and dogs with sharp teeth.
The pack in the boar
hunt usually consisted of hunters on horseback or on foot, and dogs made of stravieri (Corso x sight hound),
mezzosangue (Corso x scent hound or segugi), and the Corsos. Hunts carried out
on horseback were preferred by aristocrats and wealthy whereas others preferred
to hunt on foot.
The painting ‘Fernando I On A Wild Boar Hunt’ shows
that in the front there are horsemen and handlers with their leashed dogs
arriving at the scene, and in the background horseman and dogs are chasing a
pack of boar while the handlers are unleashing other dogs. And at the right
side of the picture a boar caught by the ear, a pair of wounded dogs with the
pack and the armed horsemen pushing on. The dogs shown are sight hounds and
Cane Corsos, prevalently dark brindle or wheat-coloured.
Hunting on foot took
place with fewer dogs and without beaters. The dogs searched for traces of the
game. The hunters used their experiences to determine the size of the pack of
boars, observing the holes they had dug by rolling in the mud puddles or the
rock and the tree trunks they had rubbed to free themselves from parasites. The
expert hunters were even able to establish the weight and sex of an animal by
observing the traces left on the tree trunks by its teeth. This was a prime
condition for the hunters in planning the approach and tactics used for the
hunt to be successful. If it was found to be an adult male boar, the foot
hunters made used of hounds and half-breeds to find and follow the prey,
cornering it until the hunters arrived. Only at this point the Corsos were
unleashed to hold the boar and allowed the hunters to finish the boar off with
their spears.
There wer also the
swineherds who would hunt the wild-again swine (maiale rinselvatichito)
that return to savage state, forming small tribes of hybrids when they bred
with wild boar. The hunt was usually undertaken with a couple of Corsi, and
ended quickly and less subtly; a dog held the prey by the ear and the other
killed it with a precise bite in the jugular vein.
The hunters chose
dogs in their hunting packs meticulously, preferring those with a distinctly
strong and resolute character, fawn with black mask or dark brindle, the
colours easily camouflage in the woods or the Mediterranean bush.
Training of the
Corsos began when they were still puppies. The intention is to make use of and
improve the natural and instinctive inclination of the Corso to stand up to any
kind of animal. An early successful exercise consisted in taking a youngster
into the forest and letting him find the stuffed hide of a small boar in the
bush; he would then bite and shake this make-believe prey when it was found. In
this way, it was believed that the puppy gained confidence with animal and
acquired self-confidence. In the second stage, the students were chained as
they watched and learned the attack techniques from adult Corsos launching
against a boar. As soon as the attacking Corsos were holding the prey by the
ear or the throat, the puppies were released and in their turn incited with a
tone both reassuring and firm to approach the held prey. When the youngsters
had learned these lessons well they were thrown directly against a pig to
accustom them to the brusque reactions of the beast, and to the necessity for a
strong grip without error caused by an expert assault at the right time.
The hunt called for
enormous use of energy as the dog often had to follow the prey for hours before
he found and down it. Not only the training but the food for dogs as well was
chosen with care. Before the hunt they were given such high-protein food as
whey mixed with ground corn, bran, or sorghum, and oat chaff for carbohydrates
and sugar. This permitted the dogs to consume less oxygen, improving their
cardio-respiratory rhythm and the efficiency of their muscular conditions. They
thus had more resistance to fatigue, but light stomach. Upon return from the
hunt, the dogs were served a much based on pieces of meat with ripened lard,
mixed with blood and bone, so as to regenerate the energy and the reserves of
the fat burned in the effort of the hunt.
In addition to being used in hunting boars,
bears, and wolves, the Corso was also used for hunting the badgers and
porcupines.
The badgers have always been prized game. The
greyish-brown or black coat with a white stripe from the nose to the forehead
was particularly sought after for its bristles, and its skinn when tanned was
used to trim harnesses, saddles, carriages, and carts. The roasted meat was
considered a great treat and when the fat was melted it produced an unguent to
which popular medicine attributed grand anti-rheumatic properties.
The hunt for badger was at night as it
was easy to surprise the animal fishing for small game after a lazy day in the
burrow. The hunter would use a small pack, two or three of half-breeds (Corso x
scent hound) and a Cane Corso. Tracking by scent and maintaining silence are
important elements to surprise the badger. The badger with long, solid, and
sharp nails was extremely dangerous. The half-breeds would surround the badger
preventing it from taking flight back to his burrow. Then the Corso was
unleashed. Attacking from the front, the powerful and resolute Corso dropped
the badger and finished it off with a sharp bite on the back of the badger’s
neck. In an unfortunate case when the dog was unable to kill the badger but
only immobilized it, the hunter had to intervene rapidly with a blow from his
stick on the animal’s head, avoiding killing the Corso as well.
The country policemen who usually led a hard
and solitary life doing a job to guard fields, barns, and the produce of
harvests were great fans of badger hunting. At end of harvest, the masserie
were abandoned for fear of malaria and for many months until the next sowing.
Only the guardian remained with his Corso who was his bodyguard and an
attentive audience for his soliloquies. The country policemen hunted with the
sole help of his Corso. During the day their rounds brought them to scent out
the burrows. At night, they went straight to the habitual hiding places of the
badger, finished off the hunt with only the Corso who was particularly trained
and very much in tune with his master.
The Cane Corso selected for hunting badger was
of the lightest possible coat colour, preferably wheaten, so that he can be
distinguished from the badger in the dark.
It is said that the ancient Roman imported
porcupines from North Africa to Sicily and hunted these animals for its tasty
meat. It is now found in all of the Italic peninsula and Greece. In Maremma
there were real specialists in the porcupine hunt called the spinosa (spinney)
in the local dialect. But it is in Sicily that hunting porcupine evolved from
its ancient origins and perfected in a truly singular fashion.
The porcupine is a solitary animal, nocturnal,
and passes its days lazily in its unusually deep den. If taken by surprise out
of its den, it is a terrible adversary. Snorting, growling and arching its needles,
it is almost impossible for any of its predator to attack. What is more, at
night it is extremely difficult for a hunter to shoot.
The forest of San Pietro, near Caltagirione,
was the preferred spot for hunters from Etna and Catania to practice the sport.
The Sicilian preferred to hunt porcupine during the day so that the
animal could be surprised while relaxing in its unusually deep den. The hunter
chose especially strong dog, not the largest one but with the best nose. The
hunt started when u corsiceddu (Corso) found the trace of the porcupine
and the paths that the animal had used through the vegetation during its
nightly walk. Often it was the needles left on the ground that gave the clue.
Both the Corso and the hunter tracked in silence, following the path they found
used by the porcupine, leading to its den hoping to catch the porcupine asleep
in it. Incited by hunter the Corso entered opening of the den, caught the
porcupine with his powerful bite while ignoring the pain caused by the needles
and the great risk of eye injuries leading to blindness. At that point the
hunter, using the dog’s tail, pulled them both out into free air. It is this
reason that the Corso’s tail was usually amputated at the 8th
vertebra and not at the 4th. The longer tail gave the hunter a
better grip.
Once again the strong and generous nature of
the Cane Corso led him to honour his vow of loyalty to man in spite of his pain
and even his physical integrity.
Note:
1.
Straviere is Levriere Italiano X CC - improving hunting qualities.
Should improve hunting qualities. Dogs should be a bit faster.
2.
Mezzo sangue I do not recall which breed they use, but yes it is a scent
hound (Sangue = blood)
3.
Mezzo corso is CC X Mastino Abruzzese (a sheep dog - they have tighter
bonds with the sheep than with the human/shepherd. Saw one In Italy extremely
aggressive and surely scared me).
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