The late Paul the Octopus isn’t the only animal prognosticator.
My prognostication doesn’t agree with these puppies, but I sure hope they’re right.
BTW, I miss that octopus.
Archive for October, 2010
More Yellow Dog Democrats
Posted in Absolute Piffle, Politics on October 30, 2010| 1 Comment »
The Banhar
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged banhar, bankhar, Mongolian mastiff on October 30, 2010| 21 Comments »
This dog is a banhar, as it was quickly revealed in the query post.
Banhars are very similar to Tibetan mastiffs– and are probably quite closely related.
They both represent a kind of livestock guardian landrace.
The Mongolians prefer their dogs to have black and tan coloration, which they call “four-eyed dogs.” The tan mark above the eyes looks like animals have another pair of eyes.
It is generally a more lightly built dog than the Tibetan mastiff, and I certainly wouldn’t call them the same breed. In the nineteenth century, the Tibetan mastiff was deemed the ancestor of all molosser dogs (something I have yet to see fully proven in any genetic study) and tons of foppish Victorian cynologists went to Asia in search of them.
That’s where the Western KC version of the Tibetan mastiff comes from.
It’s now quite a fad pet and status symbol in China.
The banhar or bankhar dog has never attained that status.
It is still used as a guard dog in Mongolia.
The animals have legendary status– they are believed to be fierce adversaries for any wolf. This is something I’ve heard repeated for several dogs of this type, such as the Kangal of Turkey and the Caucasian Ovtcharka.
Everyone likes to think that his big dog can really open up a can on a wolf.
And I wouldn’t doubt that wolf would think twice about fighting such a big dog.
Just remember that the biggest wolves can kill a moose.
And I’m sure they can kill a very big dog, even one that is this big and aggressive.
