Sausage dogs might have battled bears at the Colosseum

SAUSAGE dogs were used for entertainment in the Colosseum and may have been pitted against bigger animals in bloody fights watched by ancient Roman spectators, it has been revealed.

Archaeologists excavating the drains that lie beneath the 2,000-year-old amphitheatre in the Italian capital found the remains of small dogs similar to the modern-day dachshund.

The dogs would have been either used as part of staged battles on the blood-soaked floor of the arena or trained to perform acrobatics, like dogs in modern-day circuses, experts said.

They were the ancestors of sausage dogs rather than true dachshunds – the breed did not evolve as we now know it until the 18th century.

“We found many bones from dogs which were similar to the modern sausage dog,” Alfonsina Russo, the director of the Colosseum, said.

“They were less than 30 centimetres in height. We think they may have been used to perform acrobatic tricks just as you would see in a circus today.

“Or it may be that they were used as part of staged hunts or even pitched against bears and animals like that. We don’t know for sure.”

Along with the remains of the small dogs, the archaeologists also found the bones of large dogs and those of leopards, lions, bears and ostriches.