Forgotten Tales and Vanished Trails by Theodore Roosevelt

Author:Theodore Roosevelt [Roosevelt, Theodore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781629140513
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2014-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

WOLF-COURSING

The wolf has always been recognised as the inveterate foe of man, and especially of domestic beasts; moreover, his fur is quite valuable. Wherever he is found, therefore, men wage merciless war upon him with guns, traps, and poison. He is very wary and cunning, however, and is well able to take care of his skin, so that every means must be taken to outwit him and every ally enlisted against him. Accordingly, from the earliest times, man in chasing the wolf has made use of the wolf’s close kinsman and hated foe, the dog. Most domestic dogs loathe and fear the wolf more than any other beast; and a hungry wolf will snap up one of them as readily as he will snap up a sheep. Only a few breeds can be brought to face the wolf, and these must be specially trained. The huge shaggy dogs used in different pastoral countries to guard the sheep or cattle often have to encounter wolves. The big smooth-haired dogs, certain varieties of which were especially trained in the Middle Ages to assist in the death-grapple with dangerous beasts of the chase, can also be used against wolves. Hounds proper will only run a wolf if specially trained, and they are too weak to assail him singly or in small parties; but for centuries the great sportsmen of Continental Europe have hunted the wolf with specially trained packs, and a few of these are still kept up and trained for this purpose. But the true dog to use in the chase of the wolf is what was anciently called the “long dog,” the gaze-hound, now called the greyhound. The Irish wolf-dog was simply a giant, rough-haired greyhound, and the quaint old sporting books of three centuries back show how frequently powerful greyhounds were used to overtake and tackle wolves, which the ordinary track-hounds had roused from their lairs.

The ordinary greyhound used for the chase of the hare is too light for rough work against dangerous prey, and in most countries the few remaining wolves have retired into wooded and rocky fastnesses where greyhounds are of no use; but where wolves are found on great open plains, like those of Russia and Siberia, and parts of western North America, greyhounds are specially adapted for their chase. At present there is a good deal of wolf-coursing done both in America and in Russia, though the conditions of the sport are widely different in the two places; for in Russia it is regarded as a sport pure and simple, to be followed only by a few of the great nobles; while in America, aside from an occasional army officer or ranchman, it is followed as a business by men who wish to exterminate the wolves, either for the bounty or to protect the cattle heads. Moreover, as in America the settlements continually increase, the wolves continually decrease, and the sport is so much more evanescent that it has never had the opportunity to assume any fixity of type.

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