quote-'General George A. Custer used the Staghound in 1846 as part of his dog pack that he used to course on a variety of North American animals.'

  I've just read a lovely novel written in the 1940's about a trapper and his husky pack. A pregnant bitch he bought along the trail produced three pups, two it states were typical huskies, the third pups description brought to mind the malamute.
Some experts claim they can trace the malamute back thousands of years with artifacts showing the mal as he is today. However we know that with the goldrush alot of cross breeding took place. The book mentions the bitch breeding with a large staghound. Bearing in mind the above quote I'm interested to know if it's likely a breeding of this nature would've occured?
The American staghound is primarily the result of Scottish deerhound and greyhound genetics of unknown genetic percentages.  It's written that although alot of cross breeding amongst the spitz breeds occurred, the spitz genes were the more dominant hence the breeds returned to type.
It got me thinking about m'loot, kotzebue and the third strain and wondering if the hunting drive was stronger in certain lines (as well as other traits). Did the staghound (amongst others) contribute to the malamutes hunting skills? We know mals have always hunted, but did they always have the ability to hunt at speed (ie rabbits etc).

Sorry for babbling, brain just got ticking :D

Funny this...hubby and I were talking last night about our Mals ...they couldn't catch a rabbit unless it had a broken leg :p :p Not, you understand, because they are slow ..ooh no, they have an AMAZING turn of speed for such large dogs....but because they can be heard coming from a mile off :D

Stealth Malamutes? Not mine lol

Hudson very nearly caught a pheasant the other day though ;) :p

As far as I am aware, the Mal can be traced back to the Mahlemut Innuit tribe. One of the most interesting versions of the history can be foundhere : Texalmal which mentions a lot of cross breeding ...

:)

Interesting - our bitch has managed to catch both a rabbit and a pheasant, though like Mel's two, she's not particularly stealthy   She just has a sudden burst of speed.

Rabbits around our way are quite crafty ..they just don't venture too far away from the hedges ...so of course, the moment they spot Hudson or Delta coming (or hear them :rolleyes: :D ) they dive into the very thick hedges....