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HUNTING  ‘AT  FORCE’
By David Hancock 

  In medieval hunting, the par force or ‘at force’ hunt was more like a steeplechase, with drive valued more in hounds than their music. In time this style became less favoured than two other methods: hunting in enclosed parks, really an unregulated form of coursing, and 'hunting cunning' in which slow hounds were prized for their skill in unravelling scent. But hunting with 'fleethounds' continued in the north of England despite changes in style further south. Par force hounds, fleethounds or 'running mastiffs' are perpetuated today in breeds like the Great Dane, the Dogo Argentino, the Rhodesian Ridgeback and, in the United States, by the Black Mouth Cur, whatever their classification by kennel clubs.

A further type of hound was the 'hunting mastiff', used to close with and either seize or pull down big game such as boar, wild bull, auroch and stag. The 'bandogge', describing a function not a breed-type, was the mastiff-like catch-dog. Many were killed by their quarry. They were often ferocious and therefore held on leashes in the hunt, for release only when the baying hounds had done their job. This is why they were called bandogges (band+dog). It was not because they were tethered guard-dogs or tied-up yard-dogs as some writers have claimed. Undoubtedly some bandogges found employment as guard dogs on chains in yards. But there is an old English ballad of around 1610 which includes these lines: "Half a hundred good band-dogs, Came running over the lee." There is little indication of solitary tied-up yard-dogs in these words. Sadly, far too many of the hounds used at the final stages of the medieval hunt, the ‘holding and seizing’ dogs, are regarded today as guarding breeds and their hunting instincts and capabilities not prized – or even acknowledged. It is important too to be aware that in earlier times the word ‘dog’ itself meant the mastiff-type, as the words ‘dogue’ and ‘dogge’ indicate in breed titles today.

  From such a background, the mastiff type became embraced by the Working Group and a breed like the Bulldog, so much a sporting dog in previous centuries, became a Utility Group breed, a description even sounding disparaging. Small wonder that this splendid breed developed more and more into an unathletic exaggeration of its former sporting self. We may thankfully not actually want our Bulldogs to bait bulls nowadays, but, to be true to their origins they should be physically capable of doing so. Our Otterhounds don't hunt the otter in today’s times but they retain the physical ability to do so - and expect to be judged as hounds born to hunt. The Bulldog seems to be judged mainly on its head! Anyone doubting that the mastiff-types were hunting dogs should study these words from the past: “A mastiff is a manner of hound”. (The Master of Game by Edward, second Duke of York). "The mastiff is a huge, stubborn, ugly and impetuous hound." (Description of England by William Harrison, 1586). “In the 6th (Forest Law) of Edward the First (King of England, 1272-1307) it was ordained, if any mastiff be found on any deer, the same mastiff being expeditated (i.e. made lame), then the owner shall be quit of that deed...the mastiff in those ages was a very different animal from the massive creature of later times." ( Researches into the History of the British Dog by George Jesse, 1866). "In the very specialised circumstances of the Tudor animal fight, the mastiff was really very much at a disadvantage. It had never been bred, originally, as an animal-fighting dog at all. It was a hunting dog." (The British Dog by Carson Ritchie, Robert Hale, 1981). Our ancestors knew about hunting dogs, in all their forms.

  The Hound Group, as recognised by the KC, embraces a distinguished and extremely varied collection of breeds of dog. The scenthounds are well represented, from the lugubrious Bloodhound to the lively Beagle, with more foreign breeds like the Basset Fauve de Bretagne, the Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen and the Hamiltonstovare, entering the list with each decade. The sighthounds also feature strongly, from the aristocratic Afghan Hound to the once humble Whippet. The group even includes a breed which works to the gun, the Finnish Spitz, and a breed better classified as a terrier, the Dachshund. But there is a serious omission in this group, that of the heavy hounds, better called the hunting mastiffs.

 The omission of the Great Dane, once a renowned boarhound, from the Hound Group has long been not just a significant loss from the group but also a threat to the credibility of the group system itself. That omission is however much more understandable when related to the omission of the hunting mastiffs altogether. Why should wolfhounds feature in this group but not boarhounds and the heavy hounds once used to hunt other big game, such as wild bulls, buffalo, bears and even wild asses? I suspect that one reason is the influence that Victorian writers on dogs had on the emerging KC. The former offer us fascinating reading material and provide quaint quotes but their scholarship, particularly any objective corroborated research, is sadly lacking. Regrettably, such sources are always the first resort of the eager breed historian or the overnight dog expert. A fair general summary might be that the Victorian writers on dogs were all too often mainly gundog enthusiasts only too willing to portray other breeds in their contemporary rather than their historic setting. This has proved misleading.

 Unfortunately, the FCI too has got itself into a considerable muddle over the heavy hound breeds it recognises and Britain does not. The Fila Brasiliero and the Dogo Argentino, both still used as heavy hounds in their native countries, are not classified as hounds but collected together with a real hotch-potch of breeds including what they dub Molossers and Dogues, mainly the broad-mouthed breeds. Even overlooking the fact that the Molossian dog took two forms, a big flock guardian and, separately, a huge hound, and did not include the broad-mouthed breeds, such a grouping wrongly transplants the descendants of the heavy hounds into the guarding breeds.  This betrays their rich heritage and seriously misleads breeders and judges of such admirable dogs. Group 2 under the FCI system includes Pinschers, Schnauzers, 'Molossian Type' and Swiss Cattle Dogs. In other words, terriers from Germany, hunting dogs from South America, a boarhound from Germany, flock guardians from the Pyrenees and the Caucasus, the mastiff breeds of Europe, the Bulldog and a water-dog from Canada, the Newfoundland, are considered to have some sort of collective bond or rational congregation. Scenthounds are in Group 6.

 This means that scenthounds like the Grand Bleu de Gascogne, the Grand Gascon-Saintongeois, the Anglo-Francais Blanc et Noir and the Francais Tricolore, all around 0.65m high are candidates for Group 6. But hounds from South America of that size are not. The Fila Brasiliero was developed from a number of breeds, including the Bloodhound and the Great Dane, but is assessed by the FCI to be not a hound but purely a guarding breed. Our KC puts the Bloodhound in the Hound Group, the Great Dane in the Working Group and the Bulldog in the Utility Group. There is some very muddled thinking going on here and it can't produce judges with the desired experience or knowledge in the right rings. Hounds by their very birthright have to be judged as such.

 Of course, the loss of function once the hunting of big game with hounds lapsed led to the disappearance of many types of heavy hound: the Bullenbeisser in Germany, the Mendelan, a huge bearhound, in Russia and the Suliot Dog in Macedonia/Greece, for example. The huge Staghounds of Devon and Somerset, disbanded early in the last century, were twenty-seven inches (0.68m) high and described by Dr. Charles Palk Collyns in his The Chase of the Wild Red Deer as "A nobler pack of hounds no man ever saw. They had been in the country for years, and had been bred with the utmost care for the express purpose of stag-hunting...their great size enabled them to cross the long heather and rough sedgy pasturage of the forest without effort or difficulty."                       

  Sir Walter Scott, in Woodstock, produces an interesting description with his words on 'Bevis': "It was a large wolf-dog, in strength a Mastiff, in form and almost in fleetness a Greyhound. Bevis was the noblest of the kind which ever pulled down a stag, tawny-coloured like a lion, with a black muzzle and feet." That, at the start of the 19th century in Britain, is a good description of the alauntes or hunting mastiffs of Gaston de Foix four hundred years earlier. Topsell, writing in 1607, stated that: "There be in France, dogs brought out of Great Britain to kill bears, wolves, and wild boars", describing such dogs as "singularly swift and strong." We have clearly lost a distinctive type of heavy hound. The Englische Dogge or huge hunting hound from England was revered in medieval Germany.

 Denmark has also lost hound breeds, the Augustenborg Hunter and the Strelluf Hound, for example, but has saved the Broholmer, an ancient type of hunting mastiff. The word 'mastiff', now utilised precisely to describe a specific British breed of pedigree dog, has long been used, and misused, by scholars to describe huge fierce dogs of all types. This has allowed researchers in the breed of Mastiff to indulge in all kinds of whimsical thinking, as Adcock, Taunton, Kingdon and MacDona demonstrated a century ago. In his valuable book Hunting and Hunting Reserves in Medieval Scotland, John Gilbert writes of references to mastiffs in the Scottish Forest Laws; capable of attacking and pulling down deer, they wore spiked collars and were used to attack wolves and hunt boar, when they hunted to the horn.

  Gilbert was referring to a heavy hound not what is now the modern breed of Mastiff, whose appearance and especially its movement is scarcely hound-like. This makes a point for me. Directly you stop breeding a dog to a known function, even one long lapsed, then the breed that dog belongs to loses its way. We saw this in the Bulldog and now see it increasingly in the broad-mouthed dogs, worryingly too short in the muzzle and progressively less athletic. Their fanciers forget the sporting origins of their breed, foolishly to my mind, and pursue obsessions with heads, bone and bulk. This is not only historically incorrect but never to the benefit of the dog.

 The heavy hounds were highly rated in the ancient world, from China to Assyria and throughout Europe. Their function may have been overtaken by the invention of firearms and the march of time, but those which survive should not be insulted by being bred as unathletic yard-dogs, described as 'Utility' breeds and removed from the sporting division, to be lumped with the herding breeds or sled-dogs. The Hound Group both in the FCI and the KC interpretation urgently needs a truly radical rethink.

 The answer lies in a move away from the rather arbitrary division of hound breeds into scent or sight hounds. All hounds hunt by sight at times and versatile hounds like the Ibizan use sight, scent and hearing to equal effect. A better separation would be between those which hunt using stamina, like most of the scenthounds, those which hunt mainly using their sheer speed, like the sighthounds, those which hunted using scent and sight as par force hounds and those which were employed 'at the kill', as holding and seizing hounds. This would bring the hunting mastiffs into the Hound Group, but more importantly bring them under judges who are used to assessing animals which were designed to hunt their prey. Movement, athleticism generally, and probably feet and 'bite', would soon improve.

  The mastiff breeds, whether huge like the Mastiff of England, as small as the Bulldog of Britain, cropped-eared like the Cane Corso of Italy and the Perro de Presa of the Canaries, loose-skinned like the Mastini of Italy or dock-tailed like the Boxer of Germany, are not only fine examples of powerful but good-tempered dogs but form part of their respective nation's canine heritage. It is vital that they do not fall victim to show ring faddists or misguided cliques of rosette-chasing, over-competitive zealots. A giant Mastiff that can hardly walk, a muzzle-less Bulldog that can hardly breathe and a Bullmastiff dying young from an avoidable inherited disease are all sad reflections on the moral sterility of 20th/21st century breeders.

 May 21st century breeders wake up to such unacceptable excesses, honour the proud heritage of these distinguished breeds and respect them for what they are: the light heavyweights of the canine world, quick on their feet and devastating at close quarter protection when threatened. They are not mountain dogs or draught dogs needing massive bone but strongly-built hounds with their own distinct type, which must be conserved. Such magnificent canine athletes deserve the very best custodianship, with every fancier respecting their hound ancestry, remembering their bravery at man's behest and revering their renowned stoicism. Long live the ‘at force’ hounds of the world!

 "...in a pack there may be some individuals which have the special capacity to herd and round up animals for the kill, and others of more massive build who in the main do the attacking. We see the projection of these two types exemplified in our domestic dogs, especially in those of collie type which are pre-eminent as sheep and shepherd dogs, and in those of mastiff type - the massive dogs - which attack the larger animals in the hunt."
The Natural History of the Dog by Richard and Alice Fiennes, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968.

 "Guillot le Mastinier, called Sonot, for his expenses in the Forest of Dyrmon in seeking 24 mastiffs borrowed for the King's sport in his boar-hunting in the Forest of Halatte, and for his lodging for this purpose and for bringing these mastiffs to the Forest with the boar-hounds for ten days..."
The French Royal Hunting Accounts of Philippe de Courguilleroy, Master Huntsman to the King, 1398.

 "Mastiffs were still kept as guard-dogs, but their value in hunting disappeared with the wild boar."
The English Squire and his Sport by Roger Longrigg (Michael Joseph, 1977).