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Variations Of The BullmastiffVariations Of The Bullmastiff
The following comments and suggestions are my thoughts only drawn from previous experience and observation with a large number of dogs. An area of interest for every dog owner is ‘where did my dog come from?’ and ‘how were they constructed?’
Over the years I have heard comment and even made comments about individual Bullmastiffs that look similar to Labradors, look like big Bulldogs, Bordeaux’s, Great Danes, or very similar to Boxers or even Ridgebacks without the ridge and the greater look like the Mastiff. If we turned back the clock 100 years, the dog that looked like a Boxer would most probably have been of use to another Boxer breeder and the big Bulldog type would have a very handy place in a Bulldogge breeding program and so on.
Does this mean that all of these breeds and more were used to create today’s bullmastiff?
Or does this mean that all of these breeds of dog were created by using the Bullmastiff?
I believe both, for example the large Bullmastiffs that we see today could be most likely directly linked to the Mastiff from hundreds of years ago. And the Bullmastiffs that look like Boxers and Bulldogs (regency, Olde and American) are probably descendants of the some dog, because today we can often see a 35 kg, 23 inch Bullmastiff female at the bottom outside the standard and we can also find 65kg, 27 inch Bullmastiff females at the top.
So by calling the Bullmastiff a pedigree dog 76 years ago and closing the door, I think the pedigree system has closed the doors trapping six or more breeds into one, leaving dedicated Bullmastiff breeders with the task of continually breeding for consistency, having limitations created sometimes by the lack of available outside compatible dogs or limitations created by knowing where the compatible dogs are but not liking the dogs owner.
So how do we fix this? (We don’t), nothing will ever change, and people will stay the same, so your success will be from already knowing a group of people with enough breeding stock to carry you through, or having stacks of cash to travel, look and buy the dogs you need.
Dog showing was created with good intentions, but peoples desire to win, causes tension and spite that creates gaps in dog breeding programs.
If you genuinely love Bullmastiffs a as breed then consider filling the gaps somehow, and look at the future of this breed, instead of your future as show winners
Written By Noel Green
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