February 2000
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The Alano Espanol Curro, owned by Javier Astorga, Spain.
Curro; at left as a puppy and at right together with his owner Javier.
During the Summer of 1996 I went to a capea at a friend's ranch in
southwestern Spain. Capeas are part of the millenary bullfighting
tradition of Spain. They are bullfights done at a cattle owner's
expense in his ranch to celebrate something and, by the way, showing
his friends the quality of his cattle. This time the ocassion was a
birthday. The bulls were entering the ring in turns. Meanwhile,
outside the circle, a strange molosser, showing its eyes an expression
different to anything I ever saw before, sat awaiting orders next to
the entrance of the arena. The viglant eyes of this dog named Gata, a
female, would follow every single movement of the bulls as they were
being unloaded from a truck connected to the entrance by a wooden,
portable fence. If it were not for the 5th bull, may be I would have
never asked the question. May be I would have never known that that
was the day in which I saw a Spanish Alano for the first time in my
life.
The fifth bull was a bit smaller than any of the others, but it sure
was a wild, nervous mass of muscles, a stamina explosion fighting to
run back to the life oak forest were he had lived for the past 3 years.
One single side hit of his white horns broke the right fence of the
corridor into pieces. Half a second later, the bull was galloping
madly towards the forest, with the yellowish eyes of motionless, but
stressfully trembling, Gata stapled to his neck.
The mayoral, main
cattle handler in Spanish, after a few seconds that surely semt to
be ages for Gata, finally gave the order in the form of a dry, short,
sharp and loud "ho!!". I don't really know how it happened, it was
fast, silent and elegant. She reminded me of some sort of a feline
predator running after its prey, when I saw the start of the run,
everything was over: Gata was already hanging from the bull's ear.
The bull shaked its head for a while trying to get rid of the
Spanish Alano, who never lost grip of the ear until she was told to
do so, obeying at the first time.
The startled bull, tired of carrying
such a strange burden, breathed fast but didn't act that wild any
longer, allowing the team of men and dogs to handle it properly. I
closed my dry mouth and blinked my petrified eyes, ackowledging the
end of an amazing episode and the beginning of a search for the
legendary Spanish Alano. My free time is now devoted to the recovery
of a breed that, although never as close from extinction as I used to
think, has been kept away from the shows, being its relatively small
population of no more than 400 isolated in the rustic Spanish fields
like rare, ancient secret.
Curro was the result of 2 years of search. Most of them are brindled,
I wanted a red Spanish Alano with black mask. Litters are not that
numerous, although the breed is constantly augmenting in number and
quality thanks to the work of the breeders and the organizations they
belong to. In the case of the association Curro is registered into
(A.N.C.A.E., Asociaci�n Nacional de Criadores del Alano Espa�ol), for
example, pedigrees are different from those of other breeds registered
in more popular kennel clubs, known even outside Spain, in that, in an
effort to guarantee the quality of the results of the combination of
the different blood lines, our pedigrees go back to 7 generations and
our stud book goes back to the first generations used in the recovery
of the Spanish Alano in the early 80's, with an ample description of
all dogs registered. I chose a Spanish Alano from A.N.C.A.E. for this
reason.
Curro and his future "wife" Quilla, also owned by Javier.
Regarding Curro, and also all the Spanish Alanos that I have met so
far, all I can say is that I never saw a dog like this. When combined
all together in a unique mixture, words like flexibility, elastic,
fast, silent, feline, agile, obedience, memory, game(hunt), hierarchy,
respect, molosser, jump, tireless, painless, rustic, cattle, grip,
primitive, panther, loyalty, children(great with), fearless, balance,
dominant, watch, guard, quiet, stamina, dribble, powerful, athletic,
ancient, all-terrain, Spain and beauty, define the essence of the
Spanish Alano.
Javier Astorga,
14th February of the year 2000.
Molosserworld want to wish Curro, Javier and the Alano Espanol all the best for the future.
