With straight sighthounds there's no guarantee they'll have significant "fight". Staghounds consistently have plenty of "kill", but that's different from "fight". SOME randomly have fight. It's not really the point of them, so when something isn't the point in a dog lineage either way (they don't have to be fight-hard, and also don't have to avoid fighting necessarily) then you just get random results because it isn't selected for, or against. This actually applies to every single trait- if it's not the point one way or another, you get a random crapshoot.
With sighthounds "fight" CAN BE relevant to a degree, but not really the point, so it's a mixed bag.
What I mean by "fight" is "back and forth" combat, not just dishing out punishment, but receiving punishment, and then not going away, pushing back and dishing out more punishment, and taking more and etc and so on. "Rolling with the punches", "getting knocked down and getting up again", all that stuff.
This is actually NOT a common quality in the animal kingdom. Maybe when breeding rights are on the line you see some animals conjure up whatever fight they have inside, but otherwise the motivation just isn't there. ESPECIALLY in predators, who are wired to fail and try again another time. "Giving up" is totally normal and something they do many times a day. As soon as things get tough their mentality turns towards giving up. It's only natural. "Failure is always an option" could be seen as a motto for wild predators.
Being a non-fighter, anti-fighting, is actually rewarded in their evolution. Which ... I know... it is a huge blow to the whole concept of animal fight debating forums. I've argued for many years, a lot of these animals... they really aren't about that life. By even imagining these scenarios we are attributing these animals with levels of "fight" they don't possess, and when you do that you may as well be talking about a fantasy creature.
This is offset somewhat by some predators who have actually discovered this weakness in rival predators. They exploit it by having a bit more fight, and thus gift themselves opportunities to usurp kills. We see this commonly with Hyenas (spotted, brown and striped) and Wolverines/Badgers, even bears. Nothing too crazy, but they back their durability, wade into conflict with another predator, take some punishment and then still push forward and the other predator is like "tf?" and runs away not wanting to get into a real fight.
That's natural selection giving a little fight to some predators to exploit the anti-fight tendencies of most other predators.
You also get a LITTLE extra fight in some social pack predators. This is afforded to them more often than solitary predators for a few reasons. The pack will potentially support them (as best they can, to some small extent) if they get injured, they bond with their pack through effort, and also the prey isn't necessarily gone if they get bumped off and mildly hurt. The rest of the pack is still bailing it up and engaging, so they can take a second and then get back into it. Might as well be adapted to do that, and they are. Wolves have a certain "fighters mentality" in the way they hunt, even if they are very cautious and self-preserving, they don't quit easily and taking a knock or failing in some way doesn't mean they stop or think it's over. They do "get knocked down, and get up again", and have that attitude, which is an attitude, to some extent, for fighting.
For solitary predators they might as well give up because when you take that hit and fall over and roll around in the dust a bit, by the time you get up the prey is probably gone anyway. There's no point really even being inclined to think about "back and forth" fighting with prey. Instead it behooves them to try and kill quickly, taking as little damage as possible, and be ready to spring away with great explosive agility if things start getting sketchy and a fight breaks out.
The "logic" of these outlined dynamics which are inherent with solitary vs social has actually shaped the animals into what they are.
So cats for example have poor stamina BECAUSE it behooves them to have an aversion to fighting, it behooves them to quit if the initial attempt to kill quickly doesn't work, so naturally their stamina will deteriorate over generations with these inclinations because when would they need stamina? And so it did. On the other hand it behooved them to kill quickly and efficiently, and so they adapted admirable explosive and precise killing ability.
But yes also fear and discomfort when their foe fights back, ESPECIALLY if it starts doing damage. Their biological directive soon starts blaring "abort! abort! abort!" internally when a predation attempt devolves into a back and forth struggle, and likewise when another predator looks at them and comes towards them aggressively. Their instincts say "well these certainly aren't the optimal predatory ambush conditions I'm supposed to engage in, this is the opposite and very risky and dangerous, do not want" and they either flee, OR if cornered and forced, go into a furious defensive display. One which isn't really fighting as much as saying "please don't fight me, look how crazy I am". What tiny amount of stamina they do have they actually waste liberally to communicate to their antagonist that they are a "buzz saw" and injury is certain. It often works btw. It's a furious performance that showcases their explosive speed and agility and gives the antagonist a taste of pain with paw swipes, that combined with the noise and most predators are just gonna be like "ok, geeze, gosh!" etc. Mosey off and the cat can slink back into the shadows where it is much more comfortable.
For wolves it behooved them to not give up so easily, "It isn't over till it's over" was a reasonably beneficial mentality to have, so this means failed attempts would instead turn into drawn out attempts. Drawn out means a longer period of exertion, stamina increases (and they'd then go on to extend their stamina further and further and further for other reasons, but only possible after steering down a "prolonged struggle" path). Killing efficiency on the other hand doesn't progress at a rate comparable to felines, because it's less important. Don't kill the animal on this attack? no matter, the next one or the next one or the next one will surely do it, however many we need over this prolonged battle. Wolves do have something of a fighter's mindset, they strongly prey on weakness and masterfully evade getting knocked about too much (understandably), BUT there is some semblance of rolling with the punches and persisting in their psyche.
All of the above pales in comparison to bulldogs. Bulldogs are highly specialised role players in a social unit consisting of dogs and humans. Their role is to fight and subdue dangerous animals that humans don't want to touch. And that's it. Dangerous animals that should be well beyond them or, when you factor in the health and vitality and quality of the specimens targeted, really beyond any normal predator. They subjugate animals that aren't supposed to die. They fight the dangerous animal that is in fight mode until the fight is taken out of it, and then humans can safely approach the now tamed and subdued animal (and stab it, tie it up, or whatever they want). The humans actively judge and scrutinise the fighting spirit of their bulldogs, and typically punish them with death if they have less than full and complete commitment to fighting ... to the death. So as you can imagine there's actually a very narrow window of success. The humans involved had/have frankly unreasonably high expectations, but the dogs have had to just meet them, or die.
On the other hand humans are also very very good at taking care of them and nursing them back from injuries. So they can really afford to go at it and get quite fucked up, because they will then be able to rest for however long it takes and be fed nutritious foods while their wounds are bathed in salt water, etc etc. The quality of this care also depends on their performance. So the safest bet for them to have breeding success is to be totally fearless, love fighting anything no matter how daunting the odds, throw themselves in with full commitment and then just endure beatings and endure injuries and persist anyway and hope you don't die, but if you die you die, because death is the result if you try and save your hide anyway. As such, it's not "dumb" for bulldogs to love fighting and commit to fighting anything and everything, it's "smart". There's no other avenue to breeding success. They are "fight" distilled into the form of a dog. But they aren't tasked with killing that which they subdue, and their killing ability is sloppy and inefficient as a result. They also aren't tasked with running down or finding prey (the pure bulldog element, I mean, we can get into type-hybrids later), they are stubby and inefficient runners, their nose is ordinary and their vision is enhanced (relative to a wolf, spitz or pariah) up-close but drastically diminished over long distances. They're not very smart, I mean they are smart fighters, they use very clever knowledge and instincts within a close-quarter struggle (shifting their weight this way at that precise time to make the opponent stumble over, or just holding and waiting when they feel their opponent panicking and wasting energy, etc) but overall their brains aren't good for much else. They are what they are, JUST fighters. Truly just good for fighting. And I don't mean pit fights, I mean prey. Prey is either "flight" or "fight", bulldogs exist for those prey species which revert to "fight". Bulldogs exist to say "you mad?" and then drain the fury and fight out of their assailant.
And sighthounds are for the species' that revert to flight. They're otherwise oddly similar animals. Both aren't that smart, both just get pointed at something and slipped from the leash to run straight over and grab it. They even share personality types or temperaments to some extent. But sighthounds are for prey that has no fight and flees. Bulldogs are for prey that has no flight, and fights. That's the difference. Ideologically.
Problem is, there are many animals somewhere in between, and naturally the logical thing to do is just cross these two dogs together strategically to find the right balance suited to your needs. Or alternatively have a mixed pack, or even a combination of both solutions.
Today many sighthounds have bull blood. And many gripping dogs also have sighthound blood. Many gripping dogs also have terrier blood, some even have blood from other types of hunting dogs like wind-scenting bird dogs or ground trailing scenthounds. Many sighthounds also have herder blood (makes them work harder for longer).
Sighthounds have been most popular with prey that just doesn't fight back- we're talking lagomorphs, antelopes and deer. But... then they were also found to be really good for wild canines (coyotes and wolves both), that needs a little fight. Even big male stags and bucks may call for some fight. Hogs... that's gonna need some fight for sure...So you sprinkle some bulldog or bull terrier in here or there (terrier itself added to bulldogs purely to increase killing ability and killer instincts- terriers are the distilled killers of the domestic dog world).
The truth is, the wolfhound has significant bull, the deerhound has bull and the english greyhound also has bull. The staghound is ofcourse a cross between greyhound and deerhound, so naturally it has bull as well.
But that bull had to be put in sparingly. Too much and you just can't even run down the antelopes and deer and lagomorphs and wolves and coyotes. Too little and you may shirk at combat with a nasty wolf or stag.
"Boarhounds" as a type are a cross between sighthound and bull at AROUND a 50/50 split. That makes a dog fast enough to run down boars that flee, and tough enough to fight boars that fight. But with that formula you no longer have something that can really run down the fast things sighthounds were made to run down. Not efficiently. Including deer and antelope, coyotes, foxes and wolves, lagomorphs. You also may find some boarhounds can no longer fight a bull. Depends on how the boarhound blend manifests. Some boarhounds can still lug bulls, some can still catch deer and wild canines, the real prize is one that can still do everything. Rare but possible. \
But the staghound blend is more just a teency sprinkle of bull so that the catching of very fast game is very much retained and you JUST get that bit of fight necessary for some of the tougher customers among the fast flight-inclined animals.
Staghounds are usually good at coyotes, big bucks, wolves but usually in numbers... kangaroos are a popular target for staghounds. Guanacos... some hogs, but no expectation to commit to engaging the roughest biggest hogs.
Soooo....
Then we come to this matchup... the cape leopard...
That may be a little more resistance than many staghounds can deal with. Just that furious defensive display we talk about cats doing, the raking and clawing, that's a fair amount of pain and discomfort. Most staghounds I think will disengage and resort to "baying", that is keeping distance and looking to circle and harass the leopard but not really wanting the smoke of a close-engagement. And then... I don't know, then it gets risky. Then the cat can think and plot an assassination, then it's impressive killing ability we talked about may come to the fore.
But I did say most staghounds, Staghounds vary. I'm not sure where we want to draw a line on staghounds and start calling them something else, but some would call this a staghound-
That dog is probably 45-50+ kgs and an experienced killer of animals, I don't think a 35 kgs leopard is beyond it at all, for all intents and purposes it is just as lethal as a dogo argentino. Better at killing, in fact.
