Just as you might expect in terms of color and type.
I prefer to call this breed the leopard cur, even though it is associated with the Catahoula Parish of Louisiana. But merle curs are found throughout the Deep South, and they were regularly interbred with the yellow curs (black mouth curs.)
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While on the topic of leopard curs, here’s a good post on this breed at Old Time Farm Shepherd.
I agree that it seems unlikely that this curs are derived from the Beauceron, as the creation legend suggests.
Gorgeous dog.
A Leopard Cur and a Catahoula are not the same, although they no doubt share common ancestry.
http://www.biggamehoundsmen.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=12227
http://www.easttexashogdoggers.com/forum/index.php?topic=19779.60
Mark Derr writes they were the same, but got separated for the same reason as many of these dogs got split up– so someone could make money.
It’s in Dog’s Best Friend.
Derr had a Catahoula-type cur and merle cracker cur.
http://books.google.com/books?id=9_EDbatFH9MC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=mark+derr+curs&source=bl&ots=AOcRIG8cgI&sig=isjLN_FV71EhAplk8ZVwTgYXLtA&hl=en&ei=Out0Tf-KJIK88gar4MyFDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
This is one of those arguments like “What’s the true Newfoundland dog?”
Because the cur of the Gulf Coast states was nothing more than a landrace, which varied so much, it gets rather silly very quickly.
I don’t think this breed or breeds or type or types has been served by the promotion of the merle coat over the others. You simply cannot have a breed that is composed of only merles. We tried that once. It was called the harlequin pinscher.
“the cur of the Gulf Coast states was nothing more than a landrace, which varied so much”
Oh I agree with you, but from the modern breed fancier’s point of view they are entirely different. Their modern history, the past 50 years or so has been quite different. They are as much different breeds today as Australian Shepherds and English Shepherds are different breeds although they arose from the same landrace.
It seems to me that the “pure” Leopard Cur (non-Catahoula) has become quite rare today. Replaced by the Leopard Hound which tend to be much longer in ear than your average cur and to my eyes entirely different from, say, Doc http://www.oldtimefarmshepherd.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/doc.jpg
Beaucerons were in the US very early (Jefferson had some). The Louisiana area was French. There was an additional influx of French with the Cajuns (1754 to 1763). Not to mention the French “trappers” that were present in the early Americas. It would be very strange if all of these people would favor an ENGLISH dog. The Beauceron is an old type of dog. The longhair gene exists in the breed (as indeed, the longhair “Briard” is the older). Add to that the cultural view during this period anything “French” was considered “better”.
Beaucerons, like GSDs (see Stephanitz) can and do function as hunters. There is no particular reason for asserting that the assertion that the Catahoula derives in large part from Beaucerons is false. I know of no DNA test that has been done that would show the relationship of Catahoulas to UK dogs or to French ones. It would be wonderful if someone would do so. I expect that the DNA will show the dogs owe something to both.
Peggy Richter.
Jefferson had chien de plain, which are the proto-Beauceron and Briard.
Louisiana may have been French, but the French settlers to Louisiana were primarily Acadians from the Maritimes.
The reason why Jefferson had them wasn’t really to have them as sheepdog. Buffon claimed that the shepherd’s dog around the Seine Valley was the original dog from which all breeds descend.
His brother Randolph even bred his dogs to a wolf, just to study them.
Buffon had a theory that European animals degenerated in the North American climate, even going as far as to say that our katydids were actually degenerated nightingales.
Jefferson wrote Notes on the State of Virginia in response to Buffon, but he, as a scientist, wanted proof. So he imported the French shepherd dogs to see if they would.
Buffon and Jefferson didn’t have Darwin or Mendel. They just had Buffon’s weird degeneration theory.
http://www.ukcdogs.com/WebSite.nsf/News/AmericanLeopardHoundBecomes04222008102024AM
Yes, Jefferson’s dogs predate the Briard/Beauceron split. probably the dogs were more coated than the current Beauceron. In 1863, The Beauceron made its first appearance at the French Canine Exposition. In 1897, the first club for herding dogs, or chiens de berger, was formed in France and included the Beauceron and Briard, who were at that time considered the same breed. The breeds were separated in 1911.
(http://www.amisdubeauceron.org/historique/historique-berger-de-beauce.html — in French). But UK dogs were also “landrace” dogs until the 1800s. And it is still far more likely that French peoples would take French dogs than that they would take UK dogs with them to the “new world”. Obviously, interchange occured, but it is still the case that the dogs developed in predominantly French areas of the New World would have more derivation from French breeds of dogs than from UK breeds.
Generic hounds probably played as much a part in the cur as any herding dogs.
Peggy Richter.
Catahoulas and Leopard Curs may have had common ancestors, but they are indeed quite different in temperment and abilities now, and have been for many decades. Though both are considered “all-purpose” dogs, as most American Curs are, if you’ve ever been around these dogs, you can’t help but notice the differences in behaviour, if not so much in appearance–Catahoulas are far and away MUCH more interested in herding, despite being competent hunting dogs. Leopard Curs that I’ve met show little to no interest or ability in herding–they are hunting dogs, through and through! Having had a Catahoula, my impression is that they show equal characteristics of a trailhound type, herding type, and bulldog type, all mixed together. My impression of Leopard curs is that if originally they had some herders in their ancestry, these instincts have not been bred for or encouraged as in the Catahoulas, and so have mostly dissapeared. But they are darn good, fairly close-range hunting dogs for any and all types of game!