The Story of the Catahoula Leportd Dog
A note from our Indian Names page to begin with: "CATAHOULA, a parish in northern Louisiana, and a tiny town in southern Louisiana. From the Choctaw 'okhata', meaning lake and 'hullo', meaning beloved."
Long ago the glorious Castillian Knights of Christiandom and Queen Isabella of the Holy Catholic Spanish Empire (Hernando DeSoto and crew) set out to rape pillage and plunder, oops, I mean spread the word of the one true god to the newly discovered (how can it be newly discovered?) Americas. Along with their wooden ships, armor, muskets and smallpox, they brought along an older weapon of war, the descendents of the Roman War Dogs and ancestors of what we now call Mastifs. Those dogs were used in the peaceful dialogs (sick 'em, kill) with the Indians of the lower Mississippi Valley.
After DeSoto died, his decimated crew made their way to Mexico and along the way in both Louisiana and Texas, some of those war dogs were abandoned (or had the sense to go feral and leave the losers behind).
Some of the Indians took in the abandoned war dogs. Over the years, these dogs interbred with the native red wolf and a new hybrid dog developed.
As European settlers moved into central Louisiana, there were reports of a unique mottled colored, blue-eyed dog being used by the Catahoula Indian tribe for hunting and tracking. That is how these descendents of the war dogs and red wolves became known as Catahoulas.
Catahoula Leopard dogs have been popular as a cattle working and hunting dog (particularly wild boar - leading to another common name of Catahoula hog dog)."
Click here for the Catahoula Lepard Dog web site!
Click here and return to the table of contents!