THE PRESA CANARIO DOG A FRAUD
Indeed, said thus it can sound very hard to whom is not to the current whit whatever occurs today with the named Presa Canario Dog.
In the Canary Islands was famous the presa of the land. Their racial characteristics, today very little well-known, their character, their strong temperament, their capacity for the fight, their resistance, made it very popular, and was very appreciated by the island farmers, and the butchers, that used them like helping in the sacrifice of the bovine head of cattle, in the same way that in peninsular Spain.
Let´s see what we read in the Agreement of the Cabildo (Town Council) of Tenerife of date 5 of February of 1516: "Due the great damages that the dogs do in the cattles, and such dogs have them pegueros (those that they make the pitch), almocrebes (carriers), and other people of badly living, that takes it to the field with them to hunt and to rob and others that were not controled by their owners and others that became savages, so that they were worse than wolves, due why they ordered that in the term of three days all those that have dogs they kill them, but that this decree is not applied against the butchers, who each one of them has two dogs for the service, that having them tied at night and day and only they untie them to clutch the cattle. Also, due there are in this island two dogs that kill the wild dogs (cimarrones) to left dogs to kill the savages, is allowed that these two dogs stay, because are trained, as it has been seen by experience in Adexe and Abona, (South of Tenerife), where have them Pedro de Lugo, regent, whenever they do not come to the town"
Is clear that they were not the English those that introduced the dogs of presa in the Canary Islands, as somebody pretend, and as I also believed some time ago. The dogs of the English were brought to the Canary Islands by the tourists very advanced our century. It is possible that the first, they came with their owners the last century when these formed small stable colonies in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Tenerife -there is no certainty hat were thus, and if they brought them, due to its little number, they did not affected the racial type of the island dogs, for that reason the canary farmers settled down, and establish still today a line between the dogs of presa of the land, the traditional ones, and bulldogs, bullmastiffs, bullterriers, mastiffs. They were well know beyond our frontiers the Spanish presas of the time. Toro was one of the many dogs of presa that the English imported to recover, or to reconstruct, and to improve the breed Bulldog in 1873. This unit of Spanish presas weighed 41 kilograms, measured 56 centimeters at the shoulders and were of brindle coat.
To think that we owe the presa dogs to the English is an error product of the lack of information. I had been excessively surprised when a veterinarian fancier of the canine breeds and literature has blurt out, just two weeks ago, with an article in which repeats the already writing by me enough years ago, that is, that the dogs of presa and the liking to the fights came to the Canary Islands of the hand of the English; heading the writing with two photographies (of two dogs which nothing has to do with the presa of the past, gave by the Spanish Club of the Presa Canario). The female, light brindle, if I am not mistaken is daughter of a dog half Bulldog, product of a crossing made by me, and given by me (free) in another time to Manuel Martín Bethencourt. The male, completely different (apparently), perhaps due in their genetic inheritance consist in part or its totality different breeds, the male, I say, however it does not keep relation, from the point of view of the prototype, with the female, nor, of course, with the traditional Presa Canario -soon someone has inquired that both dogs are sibling, children of Campeón de Irema Curtó who is son of Gruñon (English Bulldog of pure breed), and Guama de Irema Curtó. Campeón is brother of Teguise de Irema Curtó.
With the political and economic parceling of Spain (the Spain of the autonomies) has been born, like by spontaneous generation, an urgent desire to defend all the native thing, feeling this one very comprehensible and healthy, because, who does not love the own thing, the nearest? Clear that in some cases things are made with true knowledge and in others no. And due that the easiest, comfortable, and perhaps profitable is to speak by hearing, so there is repeated year after year that the English brought to the islands their dogs of presa and the liking to the fights. There has been one who has written that the presas, the majorero dogs and the canary podencos descend from the pre-Hispanic dogs, and have had the daring, or brazenness, to appear at a simposium of Spanish canine breeds (the one that was celebrated in Córdoba in 1982) to expose and to defend such thesis (big contribution to the history).
Thus, then, like it was supposed, with the fashion of the autonomies was born, or it appeared again, the interest by the native dogs. And as the presa of the land were practically expiring (as breed) arose the necessity to recover "the breed" at all price. And, natural thing in these cases, was tried to reconstruct, more than to recover. How? Then making use of other compatible breeds (?), or more compatible to the Presa Canario Dog. But how it was made, or is being doing? Then of the worse one of the ways and with economic interests in the middle. And these interests have priority of course, that the breed that is tried, (in theories inspired at the bar), to recover, or to reconstruct. And how is this? Then we are going to say it clear and without roundups, so that everybody understand.
Some apparently well-meaning people arrive, and they said ones to others, "we are going to work for the breed combining our efforts and knowledge (?), and so that there are not doubts respect to our good intentions the first step will be the creation of the Spanish Club of the Presa Canario Dog". And the wished club is founded. Soon the members come, and next the really important thing: the official canine exhibitions (all this is forged in Tenerife, more concretely in La Laguna, City of El Adelantado, to be exact).
But there are no presas canario dogs. They exist, yes, some dogs product of diverse crossings carried out without knowledge or qualified control of quality. Several breeds enter to conform that that will not get to be more than a scrambled (from the genetic point of view) cajón de sastre (tailor-box), in wich will "put hand" (fig.) everybody according to their preferences. But that is not the worse thing. The worse thing is that everybody realized (suddenly) that they come/descend from families of perreros, in whose houses was some historical champion of the fights. And they discuss, and they plan, and they foretell a happy future to the Presa Canario Dog that will be know anywhere in the world. And they drink whisky, who knows if for celebrate it a priori. And all of them, or a good part, do not think more than about the extra pay that are going to win with the sale of the litters of those dogs that name, and announces in thousand ways (to attract more attention), Perros de Presa Canarios, adding some times, between parenthesis, so that can better understand the people, "berdinos", when berdino does not mean breed but color, word this one that come from BARDINO, old Castilian word, that means stained dog or bovine, mixture of black and white hair (see dictionary Crítico y Etimológico Castellano e Hispánico, of J. Corominas and J.A Pascual).
As sample, I can affirm that an outstanding member of the club that interests us, or the club through that person (is not know), bought few weeks ago, with the intention of crossing, a Bullmastiff dog in La Palmas; and that another member (outstanding) of the same club obtained the product (a litter) of crossing with Bullmastiff in second generation few months ago. Is this one criticizeable? No, of course that no. Everyone can cross which it came in desire, but what is not possible to be done is to belong to the Spanish Club of the Presa Canario Dog and to speak everywhere and to everybody about their famous and traditional dogs of presa when with the only thing that they count is with products crossed in first or second generation, and that in addition are sold (they sell them) in height price to people that believe in the credibility that to them deserves (to be officially recognized) the referred club. Thus we can see canine units, supposedly of pure breed, with a twenty-five percent of Bulldog, another twenty-five percent of Great Dane, another twenty-five percent of Boxer, and the rest, more of the times, nobody knows what.. Other canine units (of presa) however are product of Great Dane, Bullmastiff, Boxer, and is not known what more. Do you understand me, reader? And we are not going to follow, because this would be interminable.
Then, what we must do, we must forget "the breed"? No, that never. To forget the Presa Canario Dog would be to abandon a beautiful project, yes, because the truth is that at the moment the Presa Canario Dog is not more than a project on the way to accomplishment, just like they were in another time and other places, other breeds.
Thus, then, if it is necessary to cross, we crossed, and we breed, and we selected. But care, that does not lose us the ignorance, the desire to be protagonist and to make money at all coast from the nonexisting Presa Canario Dog.
It is necessary to work the breed, is necessary to fix it, so that it can be considered a breed with genetic characters that define it. If there is no genetic constant there is no breed. To obtain the racial type, in the case that occupies us, is not going to be easy. It is not possible to work at the same time with such diversity of crossings. Nor we can recreate a different dog of presa in each island, and never a dog of presa different from the traditional one.
That of the Spanish Club of the Presa Canario Dog sounds very nice, that is true but, responds it to the reality? The children, due they are young, tend to undertake games constantly, and they also abandon them right away, without worrying. Can we, the adults, to behave in the same way? What sorrow me is that the few dogs that were of the old ancestry have been not valued in the measurement that they deserved. Their products in most of the cases have been crossed without knowledge and passed from being Presas Canarios to be diluted in the genetic mass of the other canine types in such a way, that in our days they are unrecognizables. Today the Presa Canario (the supposed presas canarios, those that appears to us like such) is everything except the traditional presa, the named "of the land", the direct descendant of the old Spanish Presa Dog, or of the Spanish Alano, that seemed were the same dog.
Published by the author in "El Día", 24 March 1985
