Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-07-08
TRACING THE LINEAGE
OF THE MASTIFF
BIZ DIR. JAMES e. WATSON.

One of the barnacies OF ignorant belief
which has outlasted that OF worm beneath
the dogs tongue and the efficacy OF biting
tails OF in lieu OF cutting them. Is that the
mastin dog II dog OF ancient lineage and
can be traced through a long line OF world
renowned ancestry to that ultimathule the
aim vistas of the past" from which so
many breeds are said to have enanated
Mastin history beyond the past nifty CT
sixty years brings us to common farm oil
yard dogs, and while those who have BOOM
ed the idea of ancient lineage have given
US some wonderful lore as to the origin and
meaning of the word mastf they have
quite overlooked number of demonstra-
BILE facts. The word mastiff means, or
meant originally, nothing but what we
mean by mongrel The French had 1t mastin
and the English translated that into various
renderings of the word mastiff. They were
dogs of courage, but not quality dogs. The
dog of class was one of the type of what
we now call the Great Dane, but which
were In early days styled alaunts These
were highly valued and il was not unusual
TO protect them against the Wild bears oE
putting on them thick leather jackets
which, according to some old paintings bS
Rubens and others, laced along the back,
the jackets extending from we'll up the
neck to the tail. The forelegs. which were
passed through holes in the jacket. were
also occasionally protected part of the way
down. No protection was given the mastin
as he was not reckoned of value, and some
dogs were bound to be killed In the WHO
boar and wolf hunts.
The English mastiff has no direct connec-
ton with the molossian dog, such as we
find to be the case in the Great Dane, but
was the common useful dog OF England,
divided into certain individual varieties,
such as we today make in the case of ter
riers. With the mastif the divisions were
by what the dog did. The farm mastin
the dog that attended to the stock, the
descendant of which We find in the smooth
sheep dog. msnamed collie. The watch
dog mastiff also received the name Ct re
dog or band DOG. contracted INTO Dahoos'
this name being derived from the band on
collar by which he was fastened. Inc sun
larger and the more savage dogs were used
for batting bulls and bears. and from this
line we get the bulldog. This division was
made in the days of Queen Elizabeth,
when England was free from boars and
wolves, and was cultivated to much
larger extent than in the ancient day when
we read of ancient fighting dogs. AT that
time protection was more essential and
the farm dog had to be born fighter. hence
II is little wonder that in the time of the
Roman empire and the occupation of Brit
ain dogs from England were famd for their
fighting qualities. Naturally only some of
the very best were sent so far a. Rome ana
1t would be remarkable If those sent were
not good ones. One of the herlooms of
error which cannot get rid of in all
likeli hood is the oft repeated statement that
the Romans kept an official in England to
select dogs to be sent to Rome for the
arena The duties of that official had moth
ing to do with dogs, heing the much more
peaceful one of looking after the production
of fine linens manufactured in Britain under
his inspection. No end of errors of SINH
lar nature have crept into dog history
through erroneous translation or assump-
lions on the part of persons but little ac-
quainted with dogs Such for instance as
the way in which the beagle has got the
reputation of having been described by Ro-
man writers, whereas it was the rough
Scotch terrier.
Apart from any cropping after these old
has-beens, which we have to guess about
in great measure, we can come down 10
the present breed, the mastif that we KNOW.
In my time he has been improved from a
dog that today would be put in the highly
commended class to the square-headed,
massive animal running about forty pounds
heavier as a rule than the old dogs l frst
knew as mastiffs We trace mastiT pedl-
grees back to about 1870 with few stray
lines going a little further, and we find q
very remarkable state of affairs. There Is
little more than a faint of real English
in the mastiff. In the MAN, he is made
of dogs of Great Dane origin, what were
then called boar hounds. There was also
a direct cross with Tibet masttff as the
starting point of one famous kennel, 10
which was given the credit of resurrectlng
the mastiff. This Tibet dog was crossed
on g. bitch of unknown pedigree and the
progeny crossed on dogs of mixed Dane
blood, cropped mastiffs of the old bull and
bear-fighting stock. So, admitting that
there was a breed of dogs 200 years ago
akin to our mastiffs. and admitting that all
lines we know nothing about in the forma-
ton Of the modern mastiff, the dog would
Just be about one-third of that old suppos-
ltious breed. But the fact is that what
we know nothing about was just as mixed
as to pedigree a what we do know about,
herce there is no ancient history - what
we now call the English mastiff, the vota
ries of which lay claim to generations or
centuries of pure and unadulterated lineage
The Ladies' Kennel Association states