Heroes, Boar Hunting, and Hog Dogging

 As soon as I read about Arthur’s dog and boar hunting in Romance of Arthur, I realized that Arthur’s narrative is placed in the company of Odysseus and Hercules. Heroes, like Arthur, are often presented with seemingly impossible challenges. Boar hunting goes along with bravery and other extraordinary feats associated with heroes. Hercules’s fourth labor was to capture alive an enchanted, and especially nasty, boar (Classical Mythology, 9th ed., Morford et el). According to Homer’s story, The Odyssey, Odysseus was wounded by a boar as a boy. Arthur’s dog Cabal was needed to capture the boar Troynt. Of course I wondered what kind of dog Cabal might be.

Modern boar hunting dogs would give me an idea about qualities needed for the sport. An internet search provided ample information about wild boar hunting past and present. Why do people, or heroes, boar hunt? One answer might be to prove their strength, their skills, and their bravery in the    face of danger. Both in the past and in the present, boar hunting requires at least a pair of dogs   (Wikipedia). One dog is the “bay” dog. The bay dog tracks, alerts (barks), and controls the wild boar’s movement. There may be more than one bay dog. The second dog is the “catch” dog. Catch dogs take the boar down and hold the boar by the ear until a human hunter can come in for the kill. Both dogs and human handlers risk the danger of being gored by a boar tusk. Bay dogs are hounds or specialty breed dogs—like the Louisiana Catahoula. Catch dogs are understandably the larger bully breeds like the American Bulldog. So perhaps Arthur’s favorite dog, Cabal, was a muscular bully breed or hound.

 There are many dog sport trials and events that provide opportunities for humans and their dogs to compete for titles or prizes, testing their skills against the skills of others. Some of these sports are:  agility, canine free-style, rally-obedience, obedience, dock diving, herding, gun dog, tracking, scent detection, lure coursing, earth dog, barn dog, and hog dog—hog dogging. I gathered a good bit of information on boar hunting and hog dog events from a short video titled “Uncle Earl’s Hog Dog   Trial.” Uncle Earl’s Hog Dog Trial is a four day bay dog competition. To get an idea of how bay dogs     work boar in a controlled environment check out this short video            

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MezcPKXOgcE

 This year Uncle Earl’s Hog Dog Trial will be held on March 19 -23 in Winnfield, Louisiana. Now wouldn’t that be a different sort of spring break? For more information on this year’s event  http://fullboarproductions.org/ 

Wild boar hunting with dogs is extremely dangerous for the dogs. Though dog owners can equip their dogs with protective Kevlar vests and collar, there are plenty of opportunities for dogs to become injured in training and hunting. Bay dogs are at less risk. Their primary task is tracking and  controlling the wild boars through movement and barking. I couldn’t bring myself to look at any catch dog work, or training. Is using dogs for wild boar hunting like dog fighting? In Arthur’s time, the task of killing a boar was achieved by a skillfully placed blade or pointed object. Boar hunting   heroes faced the danger and risked the chance of goring and death.


 One thing that sets Arthur apart from the hero Odysseus is the care and loyalty Arthur shows toward his men. After the Trojan War ended, Odysseus and his men set sail for their homes in Ithaca. After ten years and many detours, only Odysseus made it back to Ithaca! All of his men had perished. I am guessing that Arthur may be more like the hero, and founder of Rome, Aeneas. In Virgil’s Aeneid, Trojan Aeneas left his defeated homeland with a ship load of countrymen. Traveling similar seas as  Odysseus, Aeneas arrives at his final destiny with all of his shipmates except his elderly father (who died along the way). Care for his countrymen’s welfare came first for Aeneas as it did for King Arthur.

 Part of what makes a hero, like King Arthur, are the qualities of character he exhibits in all circumstances. In Romancing Arthur we have seen a glimpse of him as a general, as a host, and as a ruler. We already know that he was large like the half-human and the half-god heroes Hercules and Achilles. He also killed hundreds in battle like Odysseus and Achilles. Like Hercules, Arthur hunts an enchanted boar. It will be interesting to see how he continues to measures up against the other legendary heroes.