What kind of cult do you have to join, when you think that this:
is somehow an improvement over this?
Neapolitan mastiff, 1959 model.
It must be bizarre over there in the land of breed blindness.
That dog in the bottom photo looks like it could actually do something– like take off an arm or tear my face off.
I wouldn’t want to see it running at me in the middle of the night. I can tell you that.
The dog in the top photo is a joke.
A parody of itself.
A caricature of what was once the working estate guard dog of southern Italy.
The whole dog is based upon an absurdity. And when base the whole dog on absurdities, you can get absurdities in conformation.
But in Neapolitan mastiff world, one accepts the indoctrination and the values. Just like any other cult, reason goes out the window.
I get what you’re saying, but I think you might have chosen a better ‘before’ picture to prove your point- that dog is REALLY underangulated in the rear and very straight in front- not good things for a theoretically functional mastiff guardian breed….
That dog is not straight in the front. In any case, many people believe a really straight is non-functional, which is bunk. A straight front makes for an unattractive trot. It does not mean the dog cannot run, or jump. There are many, many Salukis with absolutely stick straight fronts that do very well on the coursing field. Many COO Salukis are straight in front as well.
Working breeds were not necessarily bred for conformation that would allow them to work for many years. They were bred strictly for function, and ‘function’ does not necessarily translate into ‘functional longevity.’ Not only is working conformation more variable than most people believe, the working ethic of the dog will often make up for conformational deficiencies.
Mastiffs were bred to throw their weight around. Straight fronts and rears are not going to affect that.
These dogs were meant to be like lions. Lots of power in the pounce.
Good trotting gaits. Not so much.
Yes, conformation-wise, I don’t like how my vallhund’s hocks are under-angulated, and his fronts are prone to twisting due to valgus, but he’s still more eager to stalk birds and herd what he can than the show corgis his own age. He runs faster too. Not much I can do about his appearance, but I can work with behaviour he is displaying. Mind you… he will never be a cattle dog, a border collie or an elkhound or a saluki.
The Shiba we had was said to be too porky to be a functional dog, a reject from a show line, yet he performs better than the show-quality Shiba: better temperament, better problem-solving cognitive, more sensitive to human displeasures, longer stamnia, no achy joints. He didn’t succumb to allergies or arthritis or many of the structural problems the supposedly “functional-built” Shibas have either. It’s his glaucoma that did him in.
So one can be an armchair expert and sit around all day masturbating, but unless you actually employ the dogs for what they’re used for, it’s all just theories.
So cut to the chase. You only like the dog because you like what you see, and it boosts your ego. I am not ashame to admit that about my vallhund– he fills my metrosexual void.
“Theoretically.” If you cannot prove it can be a working dog, then why bother speculating over the structure?
Humans are terrible at trying to design living things. However we are good for liking what we see. Obviously the Italians liked what they saw in the second photograph.
““Theoretically.” If you cannot prove it can be a working dog, then why bother speculating over the structure?”
BWHAHAHAHA!
Oh, I’m sorry. You did mean that to be funny, right?
Yes.
Yeah, and many liked Mussolini too.
HAHAHAHA!
What’s weird is it seems that German and American dog fanciers were the main impetus for creating this breed in its current form.
The people who lived near Naples certainly were able to palm these off at very high prices.
The dog in the second picture looks much like the Mastini that I had hands on and saw many of while living in Italy in the late 80’s. The only real difference I see is that the dogs I saw in the 80’s had just a bit more flews and that’s about it.
The dog in the first picture looks like not enough dog in too much skin.
So isn’t it clear, on the base of the evidence of the state of some present dog breeds, that people like to create aestethic problems, which in the same time carry health and moral problems too. But, we think that these “problems” are intresting. We think them that way due to the tendency of the sadism we carry in our genes, in our chimpanzee-level brain.
I have studied some Pompeijian mosaics and wall paintings and have not found any dog of this kind. The most close is the famous “Cave Canem” – mosaic in the Tragic Poet’s House.
Pompeiji was a “dogged city” and situated in the Naples Bay so they should have known that breed.
Tho must say that there’ll be new pictures, supposedly dog images too, to be found in Pompeiji in the future’s diggings.
Yeah. I forgot about those Pompeii dogs. None of them were like mastiffs.
I don’t think people deliberately create “aestethic problems, which in the same time carry health and moral problems” but that once there is no “reality” to provide a break (an actual working requirement in the case of dogs), it is all too easy for “theory” of what works to start excusing the aesthetic excess. It’s like starting out with “realism”, moving to a Salvador Dalí type art and then finally ending with “splashes on the canvas” and arguing that “THIS” repesents the reality. The drive to have the “biggest/smallest, strongest, most wrinkled, etc pushes this — dogs that “work” tend to have far more unexaggerated and in the aesthetic world, “bland” appearance. Unfortunately sport trials do much the same thing — it isn’t enough to have a dog that can “work” (be it retrieving, herding, coursing), it has to be the ‘best” at increasingly “higher” standards for the trial — and usually, increasingly less real tests. A working “mastiff” doesn’t really look that different from the bas-reliefs of assyrian mastiffs. So to “distinguish” between an English /German/French/Italian dog, it’s necessary to have some “unique” characteristic, which then people in the asethetic role start to exaggerate. I’m not sure what the solution is — designing a robust “work + appearance + health” criteria that isn’t exaggerated in any of the directions is harder than many probably think.
Peggy Richter.