The
Present Times
In
England, dog showing became popular in the mid-1800s. Wealthy
people kept and bred Mastiffs and started the first recorded
pedigrees. These were registered with what was then the
only kennel club in the world, The Kennel Club in England.
But the
size of the Mastiff and its need to eat about as much food
per day as an adult human made a Mastiff too costly for
most common folk to keep. Mastiffs
began to decline in popularity until the late 1800's, when
interest revived briefly, and Mastiffs started to be exported
to America.
During
the World War I, Mastiffs was used to pull munitions carts
on the fronts. World
War I saw their decline again in England, and by the 1920's
they were almost extinct in that country in their pure form.
It was considered unpatriotic to keep dogs alive who ate
as much in a day as a soldier; entire huge kennels were
put down as a result.
After
the
World War I, only
a very small number of mastiffs still existed. A few people
in England decided to try as hard as they could to save
the breed from disappearing for good. They started rebuilding
the mastiff by mixing blood from shorthaired St. Bernhards.
The
World
War II almost finished the breed in England.
In
October 1946 fifteen enthusiastic mastiff-lovers gathered
in London and began an
almost hopeless mission: to save the English mastiff from
extinction. At the end of 1947 only seven dogs were still
alive in England. This situation led to import dogs from
USA and Canada and the countries of the rest Europe that
still has Mastiffs.
In
our time the mastiff basically is a family dog, but he is
also a fantastic watchdog. The home is his fortress, and
he knows how to convince strangers that they don't belong
there. The mastiff will normally not attack an intruder
unless it's self-defense, but very few people is brave or
fool enough to find out if a
Mastiff with 100 active kilos is serious when he stands
tall in front of you with a low bass sound coming from his
throat.
