THE MASTIFFS: THE BIG GAME HUNTERS
by   David Hancock

INTRODUCTION

 "A mastiff pass'd inflam'd with ire
His eyeballs shot indignant fire."
John Gay's IX Fable.

 Coverage

 This book tells you about the mastiff breeds, that is, the broad-mouthed or 'modified brachycephalic' breeds of pure-bred dog which feature in kennel club lists across the world. The word 'brachycephalic' is used as meaning: having a relatively broad short skull (typically with the breadth at least 80% of the length). The expression 'modified brachycephalic' is used as meaning a reduced form of this, i.e. not as short as the truly brachycephalic dogs like the Pug, Pekingese, Boston Terrier and French Bulldog but with the breadth around 70-75% of the length and, especially, with the muzzle length being at least one third of the length of the head.

Erroneous Titles

 Those breeds of dog with the word 'mastiff' incorrectly in their recognised breed title are not included in this book. It is extremely unwise to group types of dog together merely because of a breed title bestowed by a kennel club without any real research and without a legitimate reason. The Tibetan Spaniel is not a gundog; the Tibetan Terrier is not a terrier in the 'earthdog' sense. And no fancier of those charming breeds would challenge that statement. Why, then, should the Tibetan Mastiff be considered a mastiff on account of its title rather than its anatomy and function? Type matters more than title.

Fallacious Breed Histories

 The recorded histories of most breeds of dog are usually no more than romantic fantasies, either conjured up by over-zealous breed fanciers or unwisely plagiarised from inaccurate or exaggerated writings from the past. The history of the mastiff breeds is no exception, mainly through the tendentious and highly selective accounts provided by English Victorian enthusiasts like Wynn, Adcock, Taunton and Kingdon, whose words down the decades have been reported as authoritative and factually correct. This lack of true research and intellectual honesty does scant justice to a distinguished group of dogs, rightly respected for their extraordinary bravery, admirable temperament, staunch character and formidable appearance.

Establishing Facts

 If you study informative and well-researched books such as: Hunting in the Ancient World by J.K.Anderson (University of California Press, 1985), Sport in Classic Times by A.J.Butler (Ernest Benn Ltd., London, 1930), Hounds and Hunting in Ancient Greece by Denison Bingham Hull (University of Chicago Press, 1964) and The History of Hunting by Patrick Chalmers (Seeley, Service & Co., 1930), a number of key facts about the mastiff breeds emerge. First of all, they were originally heavy hounds, used to pull down big game before the invention of firearms. There are well-known artefacts from ancient Assyria to demonstrate this. Secondly, there is evidence that they originated in what used to be called Tartary, were known to the Greeks and Romans as 'Indian' dogs or the dogs of the Hyrcani and were linked by ancient scholars to an area called Gurgan, near the historic silk route, now roughly where Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan now meet.

Molossian Muddle

 Thirdly, the Molossian dogs so revered by the Greeks and Romans were not broad-mouthed, 'modified brachycephalic', mastiff breeds but comprised two types of huge dogs: a flock guardian, rather like today's Pyrenean Mountain Dog, and a giant par force hound, rather like today's Great Dane. But once scholars lacking knowledge of dogs came across huge dogs described as Molossians, they made the giant leap of declaring all huge dogs, including the broad-mouthed mastiff breeds, as Molossians. This conflicted with the detailed well-documented references from the writings of a number of authorities, especially in Ancient Greece. The Assyrians predate the Molossi and left artefacts as evidence of mastiff ownership but still get no acknowledgement.

Unhelpful Titles

 Fourthly, a number of breeds with mastiff in their title, such as the Tibetan Mastiff, the Spanish Mastiff, the Pyrenean Mastiff and the Bangara Mastiff, are NOT broad-mouthed breeds but belong in the Pastoral Group, as flock guardians. Undoubtedly, mastiff, i.e. broad-mouthed dog's, blood was introduced into such breeds from time to time to infuse ferocity and strength, but their skulls are quite different from the 'modified brachycephalic' breeds. The Germans call the Great Dane a German mastiff, but they mean a hunting mastiff or alaunt, not a broad-mouthed dog. Such loose nomenclature continues to undermine the credibility of kennel clubs the world over, with even the international body, the FCI, misguidedly embracing any dog with mastiff in its title or a 'modified brachycephalic' skull as a 'Molosser'.  

The Word 'Mastiff'

 Fifthly, the original meaning of the word 'mastiff' is now agreed by most etymologists to be 'a large dog of mixed breeding'. This is in no way demeaning to the contemporary mastiff breeds and certainly not to the magnificent English breed of Mastiff; the word nowadays has a precise accepted meaning. But the historic use of the word in its original sense has led many breed researchers, when seeing a reference to the word 'mastiff' in old documents, into the false assumption that the reference was to the modern breed of that name. This too is a fault of many Bulldog researchers, who similarly see every historic reference to a 'bull-dog' i.e. the function, as referring to the neoteric breed of Bulldog.

Tendentious Translations

 Sixthly, there is no evidence at all to support the claim  that the Romans found mastiffs in Britain on conquering it. They found 'pugnaces', huge, heavy-headed, rough-coated, savage hunting dogs, rather like today's Irish Wolfhound only smaller and with a stronger skull. Such dogs were developed by the British and the Celts in a range of sizes. The myth that the Romans had a 'procurator' of dogs in Britain to send mastiffs back to the amphitheatres has long been exposed, either as a misprint or confusion between two words: gynaecii and cynegii; the official was in fact the Administrator of the Imperial Weaving Works.

Nomenclature

 Reference is made throughout this book to the 'holding dogs', sometimes referred to by authors as seizing, gripping or pinning dogs. In other languages such dogs are known as Filas, Perros de Presa, Beissers and Canes de Presa. In the English-speaking world, they are sometimes termed catch dogs or capture dogs. The description chiens de combat or fighting dogs is not appropriate and demeans their value to man the hunter. In Germany the dog that seized the boar was known as the Saupacker, sometimes as Saufanger (boar-biter), with the Saurude being the boarhound. There is also reference to the 'Leibhund', literally the 'body' or 'torso' dog, 'auf den Leib gehen' means to press close upon; this was the holding dog which, often wearing body armour, closed with the quarry and seized it for the hunters to dispatch. Many of the surviving breeds of holding dog retain the instinct to 'pin' their prey rather than savage it.

Definitions

 A breed is defined as a race of dogs that has been genetically isolated so that each member of that race resembles the others from the same breeding. In his Dictionary of Canine Terms (Crowood, 1995), Frank Jackson defines a breed as: 'dogs that look alike and are the product of parents with a similar appearance and which, when mated together, reproduce their kind'. A breed-type is a more primitive example, similar to eventual breeds of that function, but lacking key breed points such as ear shape, coat colour or depth of 'stop' in the skull. Breed type (i.e. without the hyphen) means those essential physical features which characterise a breed.

Sources

 For me, the origin of breeds like the Bulldog and the Mastiff is better covered in an under-rated and under-valued book by the Scot, James Watson, his The Dog Book, in two volumes, of 1906, than in any other book of that time. For many years, the Rev.M.B.Wynn's History of the Mastiff of 1886 was held as the standard work, but Watson demonstrated very clearly the selective research and tendentious arguments used by Wynn in his desperation to show that the breed of Mastiff was an ancient breed and of English development if not English origin. The mastiff is not an ancient breed but has a long history as a breed-type, resulting in most European countries and some others developing a mastiff breed. These are the breeds covered in this book.

"Expenses incurred in respect of Our Lord the King's 108 running hounds, 8 lymers and 24 greyhounds for the hart-hunting, with 20 greyhounds of the King's Chamber hunting the hart in the forests of France, plus the expenses of a number of running hounds, greyhounds and mastiffs hunting the boar for the King in his boar-hunts, and of a number of hounds, mastiffs and varlets borrowed for the said boar-hunts."

The French Royal Hunting Accounts of 1398.

"He hath two Barons...the Keepers of the Mastiff Dogs...there are 2,000 men who are each in charge of one or more great mastiffs..."

Marco Polo, when visiting the court of Kubla Khan in 1298.

Note: The holding dogs or seizers, the modified brachycephalic catch-dogs or hunting mastiffs are covered by chapters devoted to their use and development in different parts of the world. The 'par force' hounds or running mastiffs, the real inheritors of the Molossian Hound mantle, are collected together in one chapter: Chapter 10. The word Alaunt embraces both these distinct types, as, in the ancient hunting fields, the two types were inter-bred.