Roman Dogs

The Legionary

Romans used dogs in every part of their lives from shepherding to war.

Transcript

00:00 Welcome to the Legionary, this is Cliff

00:02 and he is from Northern Iraq, Kurdistan to be more precise

00:11 and he would have been known to the Romans as Canis Pastoralis

00:16 or in other words a sheep herding dog

00:19 he's very fast, he can reach up to 60km/h at a sprint

00:26 and he's got a big pair of jaws and some very long legs

00:31 so he's fast and more importantly he's very noisy as well

00:37 and these dogs would have been used to keep the wolves at bay

00:41 aren't they Cliff, yeah, oh yes

00:45 he says I'm pretty good at keeping wolves away

00:50 he is here because I haven't seen any wolves in this particular area

00:54 getting back to the Romans, more interestingly

00:58 a friend of ours commented on the fact that when he was working in Northern Turkey

01:05 they referred to these dogs, now Cliff is a sort of a Kengal cross

01:12 and Kengal or there's another name for him I think the Persian Mastiff

01:18 so he's a bit of a cross of all of them, he's got a bit of Persian Mastiff

01:22 a bit of Kengal, so a family friend was quite adamant that when he was working in Turkey

01:29 the dogs that he encountered, similar to Cliff, the Kengal type dogs

01:37 were referred to as Roman War Dogs by some of the locals

01:43 which I thought was a really strange reference, obviously when you look them up

01:48 which I did, I did a bit of research

01:52 and the Romans used Rottweiler type dogs

01:56 I think there were slightly slimmer versions of the modern day Rottweiler

01:59 which were quite sort of squat and muscular

02:02 so Cliff is definitely a shepherding dog

02:06 although he's probably fit for war as a war fighting dog if he was properly trained

02:14 because interestingly they breed these dogs fighting in Kurdistan as well

02:21 and although it's illegal, obviously they bet on the dogs as well

02:26 so there's a lot of gambling involved

02:28 Hey Bella, here's another Roman dog which is Bella

02:33 Bella's from Northern Iraq also, she's from Kurdistan

02:38 Come on, right, good

02:45 So yes, as I was saying a few minutes ago before we got ambushed by Bella

02:50 they train dogs for fighting in Kurdistan

02:55 and they clip the ears and the tail, the docks of the tail

02:59 and then they bet on the fights

03:02 which is sad, but it's a reality

03:07 and it just shows that the dog is suitable for combat

03:13 Ah yes, and the third type of dog that Cliff is most likely related to

03:23 is the Anatolian Shepherd, obviously Anatolian refers to Turkey

03:30 so that's where he's from

03:33 Now the Romans would have encountered these dogs during their campaigns into the Middle East

03:41 Now when they were fighting the Parthians

03:46 they would have come down through Turkey and Armenia

03:50 where they would have encountered these dogs

03:53 and then as they headed into, whilst they remained in the mountainous areas of Iraq

03:59 they would have continued to encounter these dogs

04:01 and there would have been a lot of them

04:03 because this is traditionally pastoral communities for thousands of years

04:10 so there would have been just as many dogs as there are people

04:15 and with the threat of wolves against the herds

04:19 you would have had a suitable pack of dogs to protect your herd

04:29 so this is where Cliff would have come in

04:32 and given his high speed and loud bark

04:39 and he can be trained to have quite an aggressive nature as well

04:44 if you've come across the Kengals or the dogs in Northern Iraq

04:51 you'll know what I'm talking about

04:53 they can be quite aggressive

04:57 and they'll definitely go after cars

05:01 so you want to be careful

05:08 As a war dog, I suppose you could argue

05:13 that being hit by Cliff, a 45kg dog running at 60km/h

05:21 might be a life changing experience

05:24 What have we got now?

05:26 Oh yeah, the pigs have been here

05:28 we've got lots of wild boar around here

05:30 wild boar as depicted on the shields of the Gallic auxiliaries

05:37 that served in the Roman army

05:40 yet another Roman reference

05:42 I'm just cramming them in today

05:45 Dogs within Roman culture in general

05:48 you had every type of dog for every type of occasion

05:53 and these have been written about

05:56 I think Pliny the Elder wrote about them

05:59 Depicted on certain mosaics are dogs in hunting scenes

06:04 dogs guarding homes

06:07 I don't think there's any of dogs fighting

06:11 but they're commonly depicted

06:15 Sight and smell, nothing escapes you does it Cliff?

06:27 Anyway, thanks for watching

06:30 Don't forget to like and subscribe as we say

06:35 Thanks for watching

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