If you haven’t yet seen Game of Thrones episode 9, season season 6 then this post is just a tiny bit spoilery. Sorry, not sorry. Millions of people around the world have been celebrating the fictional death of one of the small screen’s most reviled villains. Ramsay Bolton went out at the jaws of one of his own ‘hounds’. He made a point of not feeding his dogs and, as is possible in the fictional genre of Game of Thrones, a hungry hound is permitted to eat its owner if that owner happens to have been, shall we say, a bit of a meanie? How mean? Well, Ramsay has a track record for killing his own father, step-mother and step-brother and let’s not even get in to what he did to Sansa and Theon. Let’s keep it light shall we, this is a celebration!
Let’s momentarily agree to overlook the reality that most dogs wouldn’t eat their owner face first if they’d missed out on food for a few days. This is Game of Thrones and this is a character deserving of such a grisly demise.
So. Dog lovers. What breed of dog ate Ramsay Bolton?
It’s a dark, dingy picture. But what’s your best guess?
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Did you get it? Of course you did!
We’re looking at a Cane Corso.
The Cane Corso, pronounced kha-neh kor-so [ˈkaːne ˈkɔrso] from Italian Cane (dog) and Corso (either meaning courtyard or guard), also known as the Italian Mastiff, is a large Italian breed of dog, for years valued highly in Italy as a companion, guard dog, and hunter.
The Cane Corso is a descendant of the canis pugnax, dogs used by the Romans in warfare. Its name derives from cane da corso, an old term for those catch dogs used in rural activities (for cattle and swine; boar hunting, and bear fighting) as distinct from cane da camera which indicates the catch dog kept as a bodyguard. In the recent past, its distribution was limited to some regions of Southern Italy, especially in Basilicata, Campania, and Apulia.
The Cane Corso is a catch dog used with cattle and swine, and also in wild boar hunts. Cane Corso were also used to guard property, livestock, and families, and some continue to be used for this purpose today. Historically it has also been used by night watchmen, keepers, and, in the past, by carters and drovers. In the more distant past this breed was common all over Italy, as an ample iconography and historiography testify.
As life changed in the southern Italian rural farms in the 20th century, the Corso began to become rare. A group of enthusiasts began recovery activities designed to bring the dog back from near extinction in the late 1970s. By 1994, the breed was fully accepted by the Italian Kennel Club (ENCI) as the 14th Italian breed of dog. The FCI provisionally accepted the Corso in 1997, and ten years later was fully recognised internationally. In the US, the American Kennel Club first recognized the Cane Corso in 2010. The popularity of the breed continues to grow, ranking in 50th place in the United States in 2013, a jump from 60th place in 2012.
Experts in the breed tend to agree that the Cane Corso is a dog best suited to experienced owners. Loyal and intelligent, the breed has a strong owner community around the world.
Some of the health problems known to exist with the Cane Corso are hip dysplasia, eye problems such as entropion or ectropion, demodectic mange, and a tendency toward gastric torsion, as is true with many large breeds.
If evil Ramsay Bolton’s fictional death served to tell us one thing in particular, it’s that dogs are always good for serving humanity in the best way they know how.