Ancient Hunting Dogs

[TOMO 24,882]

Nice one mate,,,was it winter or summer when you were there,,,I think there only hunt on them hills two days a week ,,somthing a member called keeps,,mentioned a few year back,,some kind of by law

[pointer 543]

I think it was around the end of March towards the end of their hunting season. If I remember right they hunt twice a week and the season starts and ends depending upon estimated rabbit numbers.

[Hamish.J.Cronan 13]

I'd been on holiday and had spent most days out fishing but on the day I was flying back I had breakfast and went for a walk on the hills. I spotted some goats running ahead of a few dogs in the distance and after watching for ten minutes realised they were hunting dogs not some farmers dogs. It took me about twenty minutes to make my way over to this guy and I got there as the dogs coursed a rabbit into a wall. I don't speak Spanish and he spoke no English but after a bit of dodgy sign launguage and me showing him pictures of my dogs on my phone he was all smiles and I followed him around for a couple of hours. The ferret was in one of those round tubes and was put into the wall but couldn't find the rabbit that the dogs were marking strongly and the bloke didn't attempt to get it out.

After that we covered a lot of ground and his dogs were certainly hunting but rabbits are pretty scarce over there. Eventually one got up and those dogs ran over that horrible terrain flat out. I thought they had caught it but it had got to ground. The ferret was put in and the rabbit bolted but got into another hole a few feet away. Nothing happened for ten minutes and then we tried to locate it. This bloke then moved a few boulders and crawled into the gap and was gone for ages, I was genuinely worried he had died down there. Two of his dogs followed him in but came back out which made me even more worried. I eventually called out to him and he replied something in Spanish but it could have been a call for help for all I knew. Some time later he emerged from out of the rock and ran his finger across his neck which I took to mean the ferret had killed the rabbit. With no locator and no way to dig though that rock he blocked up the holes and moved on after giving his dogs a drink.

By now I was getting sunburnt as I hadn't planned on being out so long and I had to get back to the hotel ready to leave for the airport so I shook this guys hand and waved him goodbye. I filmed part of the little hunt but the dogs were far away when the rabbit was ran but it shows the terrain they are running on.

It was just a lucky encounter.

What a nice encounter, were the dogs noisy by any chance?

[Hamish.J.Cronan 13]

A breed i heard about from reading Col. Hancock is the Cretan Hound, it's one of the so called primitive breeds that's remained pretty much unchanged for possibly (?) as long as the Saluki. He put me in touch with a guy just outside of Athens; as mentioned previously, a very nice chap and he seem to know his onions.

 

We went on holiday out there, to Crete, and managed to track down a fella who's breeding them - http://www.kritikosichnilatis.gr/en/abperiechomena.html Another very nice chap, he took me and my girlfriend to meet his family and we all went out for dinner, the Cretans are a very generous people. I found some links somewhere to some footage of them being used ot flush to guns, they were all over the rocks and didn't seem to mind getting stuck into the bushes either.

 

Maybe one day when we eventually drive out to visit the inlaws i'll try and bring one back

[Hamish.J.Cronan 13]

Interesting thread btw - nice one!

[pointer 543]

Yeah they screamed and yipped after the rabbits.

[Welsh_red 4,309]

The Mastiffs - The Big Game Hunters by David Hancock is a cracking book on this subject if you can get your hands on a copy

Been trying to get that book for ages . You can read the book on his website but it doesn't have the pictures sadly

[Welsh_red 4,309]

I bought this years ago and bits of it were OK . Very hard to read tho as it's written in olde Tyme style writing

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00MVLA2A4?pc_redir=T1

[tinytiger 822]

interesting thread

[mushroom 12,393]

Yeah they screamed and yipped after the rabbits.

Have you seen the terrain?

 

That's a plus for their hunting style

[eastcoast 3,729]

The Vatican Museums have an insane collection of sculptures depicting man and beast dating back to the earliest times. If you look you will find sculptures of hounds that could perform every job that we require from our dogs today that could of been created last week as regard their form. Times change, people change, dogs don't change...apart from the ones that suffer from being bred to standards that were created in England a millisecond ago.

[pointer 543]

 

Yeah they screamed and yipped after the rabbits.

Have you seen the terrain?

That's a plus for their hunting style

I didn't say it wasn't lol

and yeah I've seen the terrain, I've walked over enough of it over the years whilst visiting the Canary Islands.