Catahoula Leopard Dog

The Louisiana Catahoula leopard dog is a working dog that is probably a cross of the dogs of Native American Indians with the dogs of French immigrants. Even today, in France, there are very similar-looking dogs, such as the Beauceron Berger de Beauce. Catahoula is a word from the native Indian population and means something like “blue or clear water.”

The official start of the breed is around the year 1951, when the registry for this type of hound began. Since 1979, the Catahoula leopard dog had been the state dog of Louisiana.

Description

Of medium height, and compactly built, males are up to 66 cm tall and can be up to 44 kg in weight; females are up to 61 cm tall and weigh up to 25 kg. They have a short, tight-fitting coat. The breed occurs in all the color varieties: red and blue leopard, also known in the jargon of the trade as red and blue merle, and the so-called solids.

These in turn come in red and black, and include a white chest and paws. The patchwork is characterized by large spots, which are usually black, gray and white. The Catahoula can have both blue and green, and brown or amber eyes. Sometimes one eye is blue-green and the other amber-blue; these instances are referred to as “cracked” or “marbled” eye.

Care and use

The Louisiana Catahoula leopard dog was originally bred for hunting wild boar and raccoons, as well as for herding and driving cattle. The Catahoula is versatile and very intelligent, which has meant that today it is used for a variety of other hunting and chasing tasks. Because of its extremely good, strong sense of smell, he is ideally suited for tracking, finding water, and is used in areas of debris as a cadaver sniffer.

The Catahoula has also proven himself in other areas, such as toughness, endurance, agility and speed. He is a useful protection and guard dog. He is distinguished by his water-friendliness, confidence, intelligence, independence and very high ability to learn. Without prodding, he goes by preference into bodies of water.

When hunting, although he will go far away far from the hunter, he always comes back to the hunter, on his own accord, to indicate that he is still there. If he has tracked down a wild boar, he indicates this by persistent barking, and the game can not escape. He also stands against the game and forces it to turn to him. A Catahoula is not suitable for retrieving because he barks at the game and is also likely to bite it. He is extremely robust, and insensitive to pain and the coldest of winters.