One of my favorite subjects...
"labels" are just tools by which to market an animal for sale... but this is some of what I know about the working dogs of Florida....
Been able to spend a lot of time over the years with some sho enough Florida Crackers... their family helped settle Florida back when there were still indians roaming around... can not begin to tell you some of the stories I have heard from these people... To understand their dogs, it helps, first, to understand the people that used them...
Cattle/hogs were freeranged back in the day, no property lines, no fences... A man's "mark" (along with his reputation to defend it)was all that showed ownership of livestock... Rustling/stealing livestock was not uncommon and that created an atmosphere of distrust between many ranch families that still is evident today believe it or not... I know of neighboring ranches that will have nothing to do with each other because they believe their great, great, great grand-dads "stole" a few cattle from each other lol... crazy...
Many of the old families that are still around, are still quite reclusive... Hard to befriend(trust me)... but if you can gain their trust, they have an absolute wealth of knowledge about "The Way It Was"(book I highly recommend on the subject)... Many of these same old ranching families have sold off their land, downsized over the years, yet still remain just as secretive/protective of the dogs that have helped their families survive for hundreds of years...
Florida curs are a mix of alot of dogs, the old blood dogs I have seen all seem to have a distinct "look" to them based on the ranch they came from... the original dogs apparently had a much colder nose than what is necessary today, as working cattle before the time of fences often involved tracking cattle for miles before one could even begin the task of penning them up... The same dogs that were used for this also worked hogs, and were even used to hunt deer with the men shooting from horseback... stories of these same dogs tracking down day old tracks of indians exist... There is no doubt that the old Fl cow men liked their dogs rough... but most seemed to have a mixed pack of looser bay dogs with a few meat heads to catch hogs/ornery cattle with... The broad, "box" head of a Florida cur is an unmistakable trait with the breed...
One conversation in particular that stuck with me... I was talkin' dogs with two old timers and was asking them where their family got their dogs from... they laughed and both agreed that whenever they could not find a good cur dog, they would just make one by crossing a hound with a bulldog...
In my travels, I have met some truly "historic" Fl Crackers that still have the dogs of their ancestors... I've accidentally stumbled into many of them... haha, and it's amazing how protective of the dogs they can be... often times, they don't even want you lookin' in their pens unless they really know you
I have seen pens full of GORGEOUS dogs, that look unlike anything I could compare... distinct lines of animals breed by each individual family for generations...
Do to time constraints(work seems to always get in the way
), I have been unable to thoroughly scour the state to document all these amazing animals... In my opinion, Florida holds a treasure trove of working dog genetics that for the most part, is undiscovered...
I could go on and on, I wish I had pictures to show you of just some of the examples I have seen... What I currently hunt is straight FL cur from south FL cattle country... good examples of what a Florida Cur generally looks like(maybe a "tad" more refined... but still similar
)
