The Billerica Fighting Dog

 

THIS IS A DEFORMED COYOTE WITH MANGE, seen in Billerica, Massachusetts last fall.  

Mother Nature turns out a very small number of such mutants, from time to time, but these deformed, diseased, and dysfunctional animals are normally pruned out of the breeding pool in short order.

In the Kennel Club, however, such animals are elevated, bred in a closed registry, and bestowed with fanciful histories.

“The Billerica Fighting Dog is descended from dogs brought to the New World by Hernán Cortés, (aka Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca) in 1534.   The dogs are descended from Spanish Alaunts used to fight the native people.  Ironically, the breed was later adopted by the Navajo who used them to course rabbits and herd sheep. The breed was improved and brought into a formal registry between 1966 and 1978, with a breed description written by Lowell George, president of the Billerica Fighting Dog Club of America, founded in 1972.  Still a rare breed, the Billerica Fighting Dog is now scheduled to enter the AKC’s Foundation Stock Service in 2025.”