The former standard specified the coat should be short and close-lying. Long haired Mastiffs, known as 'Fluffies', are caused by a recessive gene—they are occasionally seen. The AKC considers a long coat a fault but not cause for disqualification. This ancient and faithful domestic, the pride of our island, uniting the useful, the brave and the docile, though sought by foreign nations and perpetuated on the continent, is nearly extinct where he probably was an aborigine, or is bastardized by numberless crosses, everyone of which degenerate from the invaluable character of the parent, who was deemed worthy to enter the Roman amphitheatre, and, in the presence of the masters of the worlds, encounter the pard, and assail even the lord of the savage tribes, whose courage was sublimed by torrid suns, and found none gallant enough to oppose him on the deserts of Zaara or the plains of Numidia. In the British Isles during the Second World War virtually all Mastiff breeding stopped due to the rationing of meat.
yes
yes