The Cuban Bloodhound

The term hound was used often in reference to Mastiffs. Aristotle mentions the molosser in a list of most useful hound breeds in 350 BC.

"The Cuban Bloodhound is said to be a variety of the mastiff." 

"The Cuban Bloodhound was a powerful dog used, besides for guard and defense tasks, to chase and attack fugitive slaves and Indians from the second half of the 18th century till the second half of the 19th century, but whose historical roots must be looked up into the dogs brought by the Spaniards for the conquest of the West Indies during the 17th and 16th centuries." 

"To the present has been referred by some naturalists a dog of Spanish descent, termed the Cuban Bloodhound." Anecdotes of Dogs by Edward Jesse 1858

"The Cuban Bloodhound-equal to the mastiff in bulk, and uniting the agility of the greyhound to the courage of the bulldog-is an awkward beast to contend with at any time..."  The West Indies by: Charles Henry Eden 1880

The Cuban Bloodhound, (Mastiff of Cuba) is born from the crossing between the “Bloodhound”, for large game, Dogue de Bordeaux, and the “Perro de Torro Espanol, (Spanish Bulldog aka Alano)”, used for the bullfight. The Cuban Bloodhound, (Mastiff of Cuba), inherited all the main characteristics of the these dogs. In the beginning the Cuban Bloodhound was used for combat against the Indians. These Mastiffs were employed in Cuba and the southern US for the surveillance of the slaves in the plantations and above all for the recovery of the escapees. Slavery became abolished in 1878 in Cuba, and in 1864 in the US, and with the renunciation of Spain to all its rights on the Cuban island in 1895, there was no need to use these dogs for their original function in Cuba or in the US. In consequence, the Cuban Bloodhound disappeared quickly. Dogs of advanced size to the average, around 25" - 36" at the withers, massive, coat bristled. It's color was red, tawny, or black, with or without spots or brindling. Black mask to the snout. Its head was massive, with a broad skull and a short and rather wide snout with full lips. Its ears were pendants and with wide junctions. Its weight was around around 100 - 145 lbs. This singular race was characterized as one of rare aggressiveness. It was a dog of great desire in its job, of much tenacity and of fearless courage. Men feared facing it as it was common that the dogs succeeded to kill without difficulty. It's bite was particularly strong. It was distinguished from the others dogs also for its resistance and its churlishness. (Rudeness of manners or temper; lack of kindness or courtesy). 

"The Cuban Bloodhound, of which we hear so much, is not a native to the Island, but belongs to an imported breed, resembling the English Mastiff, though with larger head and limbs. He is naturally a fierce, blood-thirsty animal, but the particular qualities which fit him for tracing the runaway slaves are wholly acquired by careful and expert training. This training of the hounds to fit them for following and securing the runaway negroes is generally entrusted to a class of men who go about from one plantation to another, and who are usually Monteros or French over-seers out of employment. Each plantation keeps more or less of these dogs, more as a precautionary measure, however than for actual use, for so certain is the slave that he will be instantly followed as soon as he is missed, and easily traced by the hounds, of whose instinct he is fully aware, that he rarely attempts to escape from his master.  The blood-hounds are taken when quite young, tied up securely, and a negro boy is placed to tease and annoy them, occasionally administering a slight castigation (punishment) upon the animals, taking care to keep out of the reach of the teeth. This whipping is generally administered under the direction of the trainer, who takes good care that it shall not be sufficiently severe to really hurt the dogs or crush their spirit of resistance. As the dogs grow older, negro men, in place of boys, are placed to fret and irritate them, occasionally administering, as before, slight castigations upon the dogs, but under the same restrictions; and they also resort to the most ingenious modes of vexing the animals to the utmost, until the very sight of a negro will make them howl. Finally, after a slave has worried them to the last degree, he is given a good start, and the ground is marked beforehand, a tree being selected, when the dogs are let loose after him. Of course they pursue him with open jaws and the speed of the wind; but the slave climbs the tree, and is secure from the vengeance of the animals. 

This is the exact position in which the master desires him to place his runaway slave -"tree him," and then set up a howl that soon brings up the hunters. They are never set upon the slaves to bite or injure them, but only placed upon their track to follow and hunt them. So perfect of scent are these animals, that the master, when he is about to pursue a runaway, will find some clothing, however slight, which the missing slave has left behind him, and giving it to the hounds to smell, can then rely upon them to follow the slave through whole plantations of his class, none of whom they will molest, but, with their noses to the ground, will lead straight to the woods, or wherever the slave has sought shelter. On the plantations these dogs are always kept chained when not in actual use, the negroes not being permitted to feed or play with them, they are scrupulously fed by the overseer or master, and thus constitute the animal police of the plantation. In no wise can they be brought to attack a white man, and it would be difficult for such to provoke them to an expression of rage or anger, while their early and systematic training makes them feel a natural enmity to the blacks, which is of course most heartily reciprocated."   History of Cuba; or Notes of a Traveler in the Tropics by: Maturin M. Ballou 1854

"In 1795 a large number of Bloodhound-type hounds were sent to Jamaica to quell the rising of the inhabitants.  These hounds were probably the Cuban Bloodhounds with their origins in Spain, and they are undoubtedly extremely ferocious and savage creatures.  They were also frequently used to chase runaway slaves in the West Indies and Cuba and also in the south of the U.S.A.  These hounds, however, seem to have had very little connection with the British Bloodhounds."  reference 

"We noticed, yesterday, the arrival at St. Marks, of 33 Cuba bloodhounds. While the vessel was at sea, the cook having slaughtered a pig, the dogs, excited by the smell of the blood, broke from their confinement, drove the crew into the rigging, and kept possession of the deck for several hours before they could be pacified." Charleston Courier

"Jerome, a slave owned by the Rev. Mr. Wilson, when about to be punished by his master, ran away. Tabor and his hounds were sent for. The slave-catcher came, and at once set his dogs upon the trail. The parson and some of the neighbors went along for the fun that was in store. These dogs will attack a negro, at their master's bidding, and cling to him as a bull-dog will cling to a beast.  Many are the speculations as to whether the negro will be secured alive or dead, when these dogs get on his track."  My Southern Home; the South and it's People:  by William Wells Brown M.D. 1880  left: Tabor's catch-dog "Growler"

Phelps, N. Y. - One of the large bloodhounds belonging to the Uncle Tom's Cabin Company, that played at Geneva Thursday evening, escaped from the baggage car as the train passed through here yesterday morning. In jumping from the train the dog struck on the icy platform and broke its right hind leg. The company was notified of the accident but evidently cared but little for their property as they wired back instruction to dispose of the dog to any one that would accept it. Mr. Babcock of the Phelps Pickling works took the dog and succeeded in reducing the fracture and placing the leg in splinters. The dog is believed to be a genuine Cuban bloodhound.   Geneva Daily Times 14 January 1905  reference

"Just as we were beginning to consider what course it would be best to pursue, we heard the distant baying of a hound. Thomas listened for a moment, and then exclaimed that he knew that cry. It was a famous dog, a cross of the blood-hound, which Mr. Martin had long had in training, and upon whose performances in tracking out runaways he very much prided himself."  Uncle Tom's Cabin

"His brother, if not equal in wealth, was at least equal in cruelty. His bloodhounds were well trained. Their pen was spacious, and a terror to the slaves. They were let loose on a runaway, and, if they tracked him, they literally tore the flesh from his bones." Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)

"Our overseer, thus armed with his cowhide, and with a large bull-dog behind him, followed the slaves all day; and, if one of them fell in the rear from any cause, this cruel weapon was plied with terrible force. He would strike the dog one blow and the slave another, in order to keep the former from tearing the delinquent slave in pieces, - such was the ferocity of his canine attendant."  Austin Steward, Twenty-Two Years a Slave (1857)

"The dogs used on Bayou Boeuf for hunting slaves are a kind of bloodhound, but a far more savage breed than is found in the northern states. They will attack a negro at his master's bidding, and cling to him as a common bulldog with cling to a four-footed animal." Twelve Years as a Slave Solomon Northrup

The Hound of the Baskervilles

"In mere size and strength it was a terrible creature which was lying stretched before us. It was not a pure bloodhound and it was not a pure mastiff; but it appeared to be a combination of the two -- gaunt, savage, and as large as a small lioness. Even now in the stillness of death, the huge jaws seemed to be dripping with a bluish flame and the small, deep-set, cruel eyes were ringed with fire."  Arthur Conan Doyle

"There have been instances in which five or six of the big so-called bloodhounds of the southern states - not pure bloodhounds at all, but huge, fierce, ban-dogs with a cross of the ferocious Cuban Bloodhound, to give them good scenting powers-have by themselves mastered the cougar and the Black Bear. Such instances occurred in the hunting history of my own fore-fathers on my mother's side, who during the last half of the eighteenth century, and the first half of the present century, lived in Georgia, and over the border in what are now Alabama and Florida. These big dogs can only overcome such foes by rushing in in a body and grappling all together; if they hang back, lunging and snapping, a cougar or bear will destroy them one by one."  Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches: by Theodore Roosevelt   This refers to a cross of the Cuban Bloodhound and a bulldog, likely a Dogo Cubano, Dogue de Bordeux, or possibly even a Fila Brasileiro. 

"Seven hounds had been doing the trailing, while a large brindled bloodhound and two half-breeds running so close to his horse's heels that they continually bumped into them, which he accepted with philosophic composure. Then the dogs proceeded literally to climb the tree, which was a many-forked pinon; one of the half-breeds, named Tony, got up certainly sixteen feet, until the lynx, which looked like a huge and exceedingly malevolent pussy-cat, made vicious dabs at him. I shot the lynx low, so as not to hurt his skin.

Yesterday we were in the saddle for ten hours. The dogs ran one lynx down and killed it among the rocks after a vigorous scuffle. It was in a hole and only two of them could get at it."  Soon we saw the lion in a treetop, with two of the dogs so high up among the branches that he was striking at them. He was more afraid of us than of the dogs, and as soon as he saw us he took a great flying leap and was off, the pack close behind. In a few hundred yards they had him up another tree. Here I could have shot him (Tony climbed almost up to him, and then fell twenty feet out of the tree), but waited for Stewart to get a photo; and he jumped again. This time, after a couple of hundred yards, the dogs caught him, and a great fight followed. They could have killed him by themselves, but he bit or clawed four of them, and for fear he might kill one I ran in and stabbed him behind the shoulder, thrusting the knife you loaned me right into his heart. I have always wished to kill a cougar as I did this one, with dogs and the knife.  

Most of the trip neither you nor Mother nor Sister would enjoy; but you would all of you be immensely amused with the dogs. There are eleven all told, but really only eight do very much hunting. These eight are all scarred with the wounds they have received this very week in battling with the cougars and lynxes, and they are always threatening to fight one another; but they are as affectionate toward men (and especially toward me, as I pet them) as our own home dogs. At this moment a large hound and a small half-breed bull-dog, both of whom were quite badly wounded this morning by a cougar, are shoving their noses into my lap to be petted, and humming defiance to one another. They are on excellent terms with the ranch cat and kittens. The three chief fighting dogs, who do not follow the trail, are the most affectionate of all, and, moreover, they climb trees! Yesterday we got a big lynx in the top of a pinion tree—a low, spreading kind of pine—about thirty feet tall. Turk, the bloodhound, followed him up, and after much sprawling actually got to the very top, within a couple of feet of him. Then, when the lynx was shot out of the tree, Turk, after a short scramble, took a header down through the branches, landing with a bounce on his back. Tony, one of the half-breed bull-dogs, takes such headers on an average at least once for every animal we put up a tree. 

You would be much amused with the animals round the ranch. The most thoroughly independent and self-possessed of them is a large white pig which we have christened Maude. She goes everywhere at her own will; she picks up scraps from the dogs, who bay dismally at her, but know they have no right to kill her; and then she eats the green alfalfa hay from the two milk cows who live in the big corral with the horses. One of the dogs has just had a litter of puppies; you would love them, with their little wrinkled noses and squeaky voices."  "Letter's to his Children" by Theodore Roosevelt

The Cuban Bloodhound is a fairly close ancestor of the Catahoula and Black mouth Cur breeds common in the south, as well as the Old Red Bulldog, (a large, highly aggressive guard dog being red in color, and quite rare), of Louisiana and Mississippi. It is said that this Old Red Bulldog is a cross of the Cuban Bulldog and Dogue de Bordeaux, and was developed in Louisiana  in the 18th and 19th centuries as a ferocious and malevolent guard dog. The Catahoula comes from the Cuban Bloodhound being crossed with native dogs; some even claim the native Black and or Red Wolf.

It is likely that the Cuban Bloodhound was bred into the WEB during it's early development, and that the Old Red Bulldog was used at some point in the development of the AB.  The Cuban Bloodhound was a key ingredient in the makeup of many guard and hunting type dogs of the south in early American history, thus the highly aggressive behavior; the notorious "mean streak;" that has followed bulldogs in American history.

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