"Lyme
Hall Mastiffs, the breed's oldest, documented bloodline, is most famous for the
romantic tale about its beginning.
Essentially, an English
knight, Sir Piers Legh of Lyme Hall, was wounded at the Battle of Agincourt. A
Mastiff bitch protected him on the battlefield, preventing him from being
killed or taken prisoner by French soldiers until his squire and servants could
rescue him after the battle. That bitch subsequently produced a litter that
provided the foundation for the famous Lyme Hall Mastiffs."
Spanning some 600 years, the history of the world's oldest
Mastiff kennel is as murky as it is enduring.
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"There probably has never been a figure in Mastiffs -
perhaps even in dogs - who has been more controversial than Tobin Jackson.
Along with the ribbons and the show records, Jackson also garnered his fair
share of criticism for his unorthodox breeding practices and his pedigrees. Depending on who you talk to, he was
either a master breeder whose winning dogs created a tsunami of jealousy - or a master manipulator who colored so far outside the lines
he compromised the very breed itself."
Modern Molosser paints a portrait of the enigmatic man who changed
the face of the modern Mastiff.
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"The AKC Mastiff standard is composed of 1,083 words.
Of those words, 445 - or 41 percent - refer to the head.
There is an important reason for this. The head is
not a single element. There are a wide variety of variables that go into
producing a correct Mastiff head. It's very rare nowadays to see a truly
correct one in the show ring. This is a shame, because what defines the Mastiff
is the head, in conjunction with size and mass. Without the correct Mastiff
head, a Mastiff can be mistaken for a different breed entirely."
Longtime breeder Donna Bahlman of Old School Mastiffs and her daughter
Jessica offer a point-by-point visual guide to the AKC standard.
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"With the mastiff, as with all dogs, the disposition is
largely the result of his training. Environment influences the character of the
puppy as well as of the child. The man who relegates his mastiff to the
confinement of a stable and the exclusive attention of the man-of-all-work will
probably succeed in rearing a dog that will be anything but desirable in
disposition or habits. There is no dog more fitted for human association than
the mastiff, and there is no dog which goes wrong so quickly for the want of
it."
This authoritative 19th-Century account captures a
new breed -- the English Mastiff -- just as its roots were being set in
American soil.
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"The headpiece of a Mastiff was the most valuable
component of the breed. Without a grand head, you didn't own a Mastiff of
distinction, and quite possibly not a Mastiff at all. When the standard for the breed used a point schedule for trait
valuations, the related head components received 40 percent of those points.
The net result of this quest for large
head types uber alles was a number of weak-reared and cow-hocked
specimens that have plagued this breed for many decades, including our own
..."
Mastiff fancier and
historian Steve Oifer examines the influences -- and early crosses -- that
impact Mastiff type even to this day.
Sorry -- Winter 2009 issue SOLD OUT.
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"Size
comes last. At least according the way I read the old and new KC standards. Not
because the ideal Mastiff is or must be a small dog (let's say 75 cm, or 29 1/2 inches,
at the withers, which I would not call small whatever the dog or breed - would
you?), but because it is already so extremely difficult to get a Mastiff of the
right type (i.e., a faultless blend of everything the standard requires), and
it is almost impossible to get a Mastiff of, let's say, 80-plus centimeters (31
plus inches) who would come close to that."
Popular columnist Bas Bosch challenges assumptions about
Mastiff size.
Sorry -- Fall 2010 issue sold out.
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