Dog Breeds : Alano Español

Alano Español
The Alano Español has an elastic, athletic appearance that fits him especially for running long distances at high speeds, herding cattle and holding large animals. This dog has a well proportioned body structure, the rib cage is arched, but not cylindrical, the chest stretches to the elbow level. It also has strong and solid shoulders and withers. The back legs are slightly less massive than the front legs which are straight if you view them from the front or the side. The paws are big compared to the size and weight of the dog. The muscles in the hindquarters are toned and the back legs show very well defined anglulation with strong feet at the base. The tail is thickest at the base and gets thinner, eventually to a point and is carried in an arc below the backline. The stomach retracts inward in order to give him a more athletic appearance than other heavier breeds. The neck is strong, powerful and wide, showing two double chins that should never hang to low. The Alano has extremely powerful jaws. The teeth are wide, and spaced out from each other with a very strong and firm reverse-scissors bite. When running at full speed, they are fast and flexible, fully stretching all limbs in graceful bounds. They can clear almost any obstacle without looking tired at all. Coat colors include, Brindle, Fawns and 'Reds', Black and Brindle and Sable Wolf.

History
The Spanish Alano which we know today is part of a legacy left by the Alan tribe which entered the Iberian Peninsula with the Vandal hordes during the early part of the 5th Century. The Alani were of Scythian and perhaps Amazonian extraction and were one of the predominant Sarmatian peoples which inhabited the plains along the River Don to the North East of the Sea of Azov in modern-day Russia. Formidable horsemen and skilled bowmen, these warring nomads were also famous for their dogs. The Alani were regarded a scourge of the Roman Empire and of neighbouring Caucasian Kingdoms during the 1st and 2nd Centuries AD. Their numbers and efficiency meant many of their forays went unchallenged, more so since they were known to sack and lay to waste great kingdoms in the face of resistance. Their localised supremacy, though underpinned by a strong confederation of Sarmatian tribes, was challenged in the latter part of the 4th Century by the prevailing Huns and so the Alani were ultimately displaced around the turn of the 5th Century. The westbound contingent formed an alliance with those Germanic peoples forging further west through an invasion of Gaul, crossing the Rhine around 407 AD. Though some of the Alani were to settle in Southern ‘France’ and indeed, invade ‘England’, the majority went on with the Vandals to Spain and eventually North Africa where they settled a Kingdom centred upon Carthage from as early as 409 AD. The formal dissolution of the Alani as an independent tribe in the West came after a battle with Visigoths in which their King, Attaces, died in 418 AD. The Alan Crown was then unified with the Vandal Crown under, Gunderic who died in 428 AD, his brother Geiseric succeeded him until his own death in 477 AD as King of the Vandals and Alans. The Spanish Alano is a derivative of those dogs maintained by the Alani throughout that period. 'Alanos' subsequently found great favour both as revered hunters and guardians. Their courage, prowess, agility, strength and enviable stamina were broadly celebrated. A detailed description of the 'Alano' exists within Edmond de Langley's 15th Century text, "Mayster of Game" (essentially a translation of a Gaston Phoebus' work), as well as in Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale". A black-masked 'leonado' Alano is featured holding a wild boar by the ear in a painting by A. Hondius of 1585. There are also many accounts of the roles of such dogs during the Spanish Conquests of the Americas, giving limelight to great canine protagonists such as Becerrillo and Leoncillo. On a cultural level, up until 1883 when their 'turn' was outlawed, Alanos were used in the ‘Corridas’ of The Bull Ring. The popularity of the dogs waned somewhat at the turn of the 20th Century when fashion and favour befell 'foreign' breeds and as pastoral methods and livestock management changed. The breed was considered to be extinct soon after the last formal exhibition of a pair of Alanos at Madrid's 'Parque del Buen Retiro' in 1963.

Recuperation
A band of veterinary medicine students and die-hard Alano enthusiasts intent on a recuperation of this marvellous and mythical breed, set to work in the late 1970s and early 80's. After scouring Western and Northern Spain, literally conducting house-to-house enquiries with old photographs and stout hearts, their labours were rewarded with a situation much better than originally anticipated. Few examples could be traced in Estremadura or in Castille but the situation in the North of the country was much better; a thriving population of dogs were located in Las Encartaciones ,Cantabria. Those dogs were still carrying out those tasks which they had been exercising for almost two millennia, hunting wild boar and in the management of the Monchina, a semi-wild breed of Iberian Red cattle.