From SAAC's Convention

We receive and publish but…..

we do not discover anything to report…..

except…..

the notification of a state of fact!

Translation by Federico

On the 19th of February 2005 I took part to the “Scientific technical Convention on the Cane Corso" organized from the SACC, made curious and moved by my greed of knowing about one of the greatest passions of my life, the Cane Corso or, better, as personally I prefer to define it, the “Roman Molossian”. With the present I hope to supply a cognitive contribution to the readers, bringing back how much I have learned to you, together with some personal observations.

The technical conventions, in any field of man’s activity, should always be an occasion during which the talkings between lovers, professionals and scholars of the subject get a particular intellectual relevance thanks to the concepts of cultural deepening, to the exchange of different points of view, to the scientific research and to the exchange of methods and results. Briefly, the technical meetings should be a very important moment of dialogue during which succeeding in focus the point of the situation and to stimulate the research until the next appointments.

A technical convention, more specifically in the zootecnical field, represents, or better it should represent, a point of encounter between the society for the preservation of the breed, the breeders, the simple lovers, the researcher and the judges. We are talking therefore about categories that, even if carriers of requirements and potentially various values, to times also would have surely to be titular of a common interest, that is the safeguard of the breed from all the possible points of view.

I have listen with much of attention the interesting participations of Dr. Guido Vandoni on the "Correct Interpretation of the standard: the type" and of Dr. Giovanni Morsiani on the "Importance of the biometric measurements in the determination and verification of the standards" but, to be honest, I’m not convinced of the validity brought that day in favour of the safeguard which I made reference.

Rather, the pronounced admission of Dr. Vandoni, on the employment of Boxer in the activity of selective breeding of the Cane Corso and the specification, that no one contested, of Dr. Danilo Giorgio, that the breed has not been recovered but rather reconstructed, have made me understand that much of that concept of preservation, that I referred to the health, to the functionality and its integrity, got lost since a long time.

I have always considered the Cane Corso, still before that a breed, a tradition, a history piece, an element of definition of the various associate-economic contexts in the course of the various centuries and that just this its heavy inheritance was the characteristic that more than any other, distinguished it from the other canine breeds.

Probably I’m a dreamer, beyond that a simple Cane Corso’s lover, but I think that the protection of the integrity of a breed that has always existed since the ancient time on our peninsula, is a very important binding for a discussion that pretends to have a great intellectual validity.

When, Dr. Danilo Giorgio took provocatively part in the discussion, showing two photo of well known dogs, that is Basir and an important world-wide champion of our days, specifying that the first one still today represents the right objective of a correct selective activity and that the second goes away from a right representation of the breed, I have perceived a clear feeling of defeat.

I search the words pronounced by Prof. Casolino in occasion of the first National Convention on the breed in Civitella Alfedena and I read: "The Cane Corso is not an invention, neither an invention plan. It existed before me, before who anyone who lived before myself and even before."

And more: "Well, if a third molossian is present in the zones of the south of Italy, it must be defined and collocated in its just niche, and it must be homologated".

Anyway, as it seems, there have been some invention and the prophetical words of a third race have come true and not only in the Southern Italy.

I preferred not to take part to the second day of convention.

I would like to thank you for the eventual publication on the web-site.

My regards to all the readers.

Dott. Marco Della Ratta (Ravenna)

P.S.: on the 19th of February 2005 I put my sign in the convention’s book of presence.