We got our dog, Cayenne, in October of 99. She is a Catahoula Leopard Dog (mix). At that time when we looked on line there was only about 3 links that you could go to and none of them were all that informative or updated. None of the book stores carried any information on Catahoula's either.
We knew that the breed was named after Catahoula Parish in Louisiana and that these dogs were the decendants of French fighting dogs that the explorers brought to guard their camps and were bread into domesticated lines that the indians had.
Back when Hurricane Katrina and Rita hit, my Dad remarked that in the news footage of people evacuating he saw lots of pick-ups headed north with a strange dog in the back that looked like Cayenne.
Fast forward to today…
I was in Boarders Books and I saw a book about dogs. I was shocked to see that it had a little chapter about the Catahoula! It was a short but interesting read (just that few pages), so tonight I Googled "Catahoula Dog" and found that there is almost 1 Million links on the topic!
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4DKUS_enUS251US251&q=Catahoula+dogThe dog lover in me finds this incredibly cool! There is now more information about the Catahoula Dog (Leopard's and Cur's) than there is information about Catahoula county for which they are named.
But there is a social side to it too. Did the popularity of these dogs incease as a result of them being displaced due to the Hurricanes? More exposure to new markets and buyers who had not seen the breed before? If so, how does that apply to our cultural values and ideals? What else came out of the South since Katrina and Rita?
That's what I'm thinking tonight.
