Talk:Catch dog

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This article shouldn't be merged with "hunting dog" because, although hunters do use such dogs, so do many non-hunters, such as stockmen, farmers, and butchers. I suppose you could merge it both with "hunting dog" and "livestock dog" assuming such a page exists.

At the moment, this is an article about a word, so it could be sent to wikitionary. Hopefully, however, more information will be added, making more of an encyclopedia entry than a dictionary entry.

Thank you Tacosunday
Praise to Tacosunday! Thank you for saving this article. You have done good work and deserve commendation.

I would like to do the following things: General, cleanup edits for flow and organization. Delete some of the initial stuff I wrote, as it is now not necessary to prove that such catch dogs exist and that was the whole reason I wrote it.

Also, we're going to need more references. Where can we find the proper citations for all this work you've done? You know that someone will come along and want to delete everything eventually which isn't properly cited. We can hold them off for awhile, and try to help, but it seems like you know more than me where they can be found. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrisrus (talk • contribs) 01:54, 20 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you Chrisrus. I'm glad you started this article. I was going to create an article called "bay & catch dogs," prior to stumbling upon this one, so I'll eventually add more information about bay dogs, because both types are used in combination. There's plenty of "hog dog" breeders and suppliers online, so finding references shouldn't be a problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tacosunday (talk • contribs) 19:21, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Non-hunting use
The "ElPresa" site seems to be a fairly reliable source. At the very least, it is evidence of this English term being used to translate the Spanish word "perro de presa" which referred to an historical dog. This historical in spanish uses the term "presa" to refer to a livestock working dog, and ElPresa translates this document into English as "catch dogs".

The document is interesting. The dog known to be closely related to the modern Perro de Presa Canario (which links here) which is known to be related to new-world pig catching dogs such as the Dogo Argentino, Pit Bull Terrier, and so on. The document says that the butcher need these dogs to do their work so neighbors should kill his dog as long as he keeps it under control and on his property in which case he can, he can shoot it. The dogs that http://www.elpresa.com/content/view/33/52/ translates "presas" as "catch dogs" when referring to them, those dogs were used "with indigenous cattle dogs from the beginning of the fifteenth century. These dogs served many purposes. They guarded the farms, helped catch and hold cattle, and exterminated wild or stray dogs".

This last use wouldn't constitute "catch dog" behavior, I suppose, because they were expected to dispatch the nusance animals, not just catch and hold them. Neither would guarding the farms. But catching and holding is catching and holding, so hunting dog is just one other use of such a dog.

I haven't seen any evidence that this practice survives to this day, do you? Have you ever heard of cattlemen or pig farmers using catch dogs on their own animals anymore? I suppose modern stockmanship has found more practical ways, but I can imagine a rancher appreciating dogs that could go catch an animal so that he could do whatever, maybe brand them, or give them a vaccination or whatever a rancher would want them to one of his animals.Chrisrus (talk) 05:53, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Looking into this some more, I also found on this page http://www.elpresa.com/content/view/64/49/ this quote:

"It is a matter of fact that the word “presa” – object of the dispute – is referring to the “catching” task. The ancient “perros de presa” were so called because they were of help in the sacrifice of the cattle. More specifically, it is pertinent to cite one of the ordinances of the Tenerife Council, that the 5th of February, 1516 writes making reference to the dogs:: "...and only untie them in order to catch the cattle". Another Agreement – in this case original of the island of Fuerteventura, of October 21st 1624 sets:"...And this is intended in respect of the dogs, of hunt and of catch (de presa)”. So, “perros de presa” as they catch (“prenden” in Spanish) the bovine cattle, as auxiliaries during their sacrifices. For these reasons the word “presa” referred to the dog" Again, though, the impression is that they aren't used this way anymore. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrisrus (talk • contribs) 06:09, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

And from this page: http://www.elpresa.com/content/view/26/49/, what is probably the oldest document to use the term that I've found, again the old Canary Island laws about catch dogs. The page, and the cite in general, is very badly translated, but the term "catch dog" is translated from "perro de presa", where "presa" is a Spanish word decended from the same Latin word we get the word "prisoner" from. "Le tomaron presa" = "They took him prisoner."

"..but that this law must not be intended against the butcher that must, for their job, cut and weigh the meat, and that everyone of them can have two dogs for the service of the butchers, keeping them tied at night and day, and that they be set free only to catch the cattle....and lays on Castellano and Gallinato to point out the dogs they want, in order to kill the wild dogs". "It is reminded to every person that own a catch-dog set free or wihout chain, that he can be killed by any persons without being punished". "For the damages caused to the cattle, domesticated and wild, it is ordered that everyone kill the cattle dog, remaining with only one dog or hunt dog and if it is a catch dog, it must be with the license of the Governor". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrisrus (talk • contribs) 06:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

This picture



 * Fixed it for you, assuming you want a thumbnail. – anna  05:58, 2 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you anna so much! I think it'd make an excellent addition, what do you think?  Chrisrus (talk) 03:37, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

From "Documenting the American South
Look at this document []. This is definitive proof that the dog and the term have been in use in the Southern US culture since, it's safe to say the 1880s I can't make out the date, have a look. Can we find the ISBN of the book it comes from? Chrisrus (talk) 03:49, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Linkrot
This article is suffering from a bad case of WP:LINKROT. We must find sources for these statements that have working links or someone might come along and delete them and there'd be nothing we could do about it. Chrisrus (talk) 03:22, 4 May 2011 (UTC)


 * What happened was after we started this article was some people who knew alot about hunting with catch dogs added a lot of infomation about this particular use. For this, I thank them.  But they used URL link citations that rotted.  I would like to find those contributors and ask them what happened to their sites and if they can help me fix these links and cite this stuff properly.  I am open to any ideas about how to combat linkrot.  Chrisrus (talk) 02:55, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It may be possible to access the content of dead links by using the wayback machine (site link). When you do find a link for web content, you can archive as a prophylactic against a future problem using WebCite (site link). However, the best way to combat linkrot, is to use wherever possible, books, newspaper articles, magazines, journals, and other reliable sources that exist in hardcopy. Generally, as a media, they are more commonly reliable anyway. Looking at this article, it is barely sourced and many of the links, working or not, do not look like especially reliable sources. Half the references are one-offs for the list of types of catch dogs. A quick Google Books search reveals lots of sources. Just from the first page of results,,  and .--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:57, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Geez, that's great, thank you very much. I hope that some user will care enough about this article to do all that stuff soon, but it looks like it would be a project I can't take on at the moment, being involved with other things.  Perhaps I will try to recruit someone from a proper interst group.  I would really like to save as much of the work done by the hunters themselves as they obviously are the experts about that and have a lot to teach us and wouldn't want to lose any of their contributions.  I mean, for crissake, they gave us the picture, you've got to be thankful, you know?  So I was thinking that maybe we could recruit someone from a pig hunting group to find the citations for these things and help these guy's out.  I'm afraid they used their own websites for some of it and that doesn't make for an impressive citation, so the statements could stay the same but we might have to find another way to cite them and I just don't know where to look, because even though I did start this article I'm not really qualified to write it.  These citations you give help alot, but they don't actually talk about the modern stuff with the Kevlar vests and whatnot, and all I'd had were old Spanish language stuff about livestock use a long time ago.  So your advice about the wayback device should be followed by someone who knows about how things like that work as, I'll take a look when I get a chance, but others may be able to assist there better than me, so an expert in that kind of stuff who might take an interest in saving the modern pig hunter's work would be helpful as well.  Anyway, thanks again! Chrisrus (talk) 17:47, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

The first internal link, baiting
The first internal link, baiting, should be re-directed more specifically to hog baiting, an article which links here, rather than to the more general article that it presently links to. There is nothing we have found so far that conclusively links these dogs to anything but hog dogging an arena sport most often with bay dogs, who keep their distance. There is only one such event, Uncle Earl's Hog Dog Trials, at least the only one that Wikipedia knows of, in which uses catch dogs in a way that could be clearly described as baiting, while the bay dogs are regularly used this way in most "hog dog" shows in the southern United States. Also, it might be WP:UNDUE WEIGHT to include this minor purpose in the lead sentence. Chrisrus (talk) 04:57, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

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