The history of this breed has always fascinated me.
They are believed to have derived the Roman Molossus, although its more immediate ancestors were guard dogs in southern Italy A dog fancier named Piero Scanziani helped turn this local type into a breed in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
The dogs are very extreme in conformation, and because of this, I think they are worthy of study.
They are built more along the lines of an African lion than any sort of wild dog.
I know of no studies that have looked into the comparative strength of this dog or its jaw strength.
I’m not saying that these are the most healthy dogs out there, but their extreme conformation is worth exploring. I think it’s a mistake to assume that they are like giant English bulldogs, although the analogy may fit in some cases.
As long as we are dumping on the kennel club these days, let me add my proposal-
Every breed club should be forced to have some sort of simple ability demonstration, trial, or test to demonstrate some of the activity that their dogs were bred to perform.
You say there are perfectly necessary reasons for a 150 lb dog with the skin of a 200 lb dog? Cool, just show me, I will be the first to applaud and defend your extreme dog.
I don’t need to see bull blood running down the channels in her face, but show me your dog doing something, anything besides struggling to breathe.
I totally agree!
I think I’ve mentioned this here before but I first saw one of these dogs in the mid-nineties at a rare breed show. Not my cup of tea so I didn’t pay much attention to them until I saw another one on a televised AKC show, and it looked NOTHING like the first one, it was much much much wrinklier, moved like it’s feet were weighted down, and was generally just gross (IMHO.) It has always been a source of disappointment to me that Fang in the Harry Potter movies is played by one of these ugly things instead of a proper boarhound, a Great Dane or dog of that general type or mix.
Originally, the Italians sold Americans only the “inferior” type– the less wrinkled, lankier version– but then they sold us some good breeding stock.
If you read this (http://www.neapolitan.com/restore.htm), you’ll find out that the original guard dog from southern Italy was of the “inferior” type.
This is one breed that is new to the fancy, but the KC is already suggesting standard revisions.
Try not to laugh when you read that the “recreated” dog is wrinkly and massive.
I’d like to know how they can guard things with their forehead dripping down into their eyes. Maybe they just bark at everything they hear? These are the only old pictures I could find but I didn’t look very hard.
http://www.dog-pictures.co.uk/dog-pictures/Neopolitan-Mastiff-History.shtml
http://www.dog-pictures.co.uk/dog-pictures/neopolitan_mastiff_pictures.shtml
I did find a site that said they date back to 100BC, because really, what breed doesn’t?
The dog may have descended from the Roman war mastiff and the gladiator dogs.
However, I trace them more to guard dogs from Southern Italy. The breed in its present form developed last century.
Chicago area man dies of acute media sensationalism, really sad story:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9DAAR3O2&show_article=1
Back in the early ’70’s I lived for a brief time in the Taylor St. “little Italy” neighborhood of Chicago. A neighbor-a recent immigrant-had a lively, athletic large female Neo without noticeably loose skin. Kind of like some of these:
http://abcalert.com/webpage14.htm
http://www.mastino-napoletano.de/agility.htm
I read that news story and thought “Did the poor man have an aneurism?”. There’s no mention that the dogs actually bit him after all, much less mauled him as the report implies.
These dogs alwasy remind me about the depictions of huge dogs used for war and hunting by the Babylonians — except those didn’t have all the excess skin, and could evidently run quite quickly. (Sorry about the misplaced coment above! I hit the appropriate “reply” button, but it didn’t work.)
you can find a picture of Assyrian dogs here: http://www.biblelandpictures.com/gallery/gallery.asp?action=viewimage&categoryid=56&text=&imageid=6245&box=&shownew=
or http://tinyurl.com/ydgqm79
This dog was clearly “mastiff type” but without the exaggerations. I find the English Mastiff or Bull Mastiff to have more “normal” specimens within their registries than the Neapolitan. I think the wrinkles in fact may have been started as a visual “scary face” tool to frighten possible intruders rather than any real functual device. A large dog that protects or attacks using mass is a useful tool — this type of dog was superseded in the 1900s by the “shepherd” type of Doberman, Belgian, German Shepherd who use speed as the tool instead. In fact, one of the early police manuals discusses the difference between the Belgian “Matin” (now extinct or rare Belgian Mastiff) and the Berger Belge (Belgian Shepherd) dogs as police tools. For home defense, you don’t need speed to run down the bad guy so a big massive (but slower and less agile) dog can still prove very useful as a protection /deterrence tool.
VR, Peggy Richter.
The Matin– I thought that was very similar to the Deutsche Dogge (Great Dane). It is sometimes suggested as an ancestor of the St. John’s water dog.
There is also a dog called Belgische Rekel or Belgian mastiff, which was a carting mastiff. As far as I know, it went extinct after World War I.
However, there is a recreation: http://www.greatdogsite.com/breeds/details/Belgian_Mastiff/
There’s a photo of one in Le chien auxiliarie de la police on page 23 where they compare the Matin to the shepherd dogs. It’s available on Google Books
http://books.google.com/books?id=1vwTAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA116&dq=Le+chien+auxiliaire+de+la+police&cd=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false
The book was written in 1907.
Vr
Peggy Richter
That dog would fit nicely within the Belgische rekel-type.
Matin doesn’t translate as “mastiff”– the French word for mastiff is “dogue.”
Here’s a description of the French (not the Belgian) matin: http://chestofbooks.com/animals/dogs/Dog-Breeding/The-Matin.html