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CONTENT
HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE MOLOSSER BREEDS
ILLYRIAN SHEPHERD (ILLYRIAN MASTIFF/SARPLANINAC)
ARMENIAN SHEPHERD (GAMPR/GAMPYR)
BROHOLMER (FREDERIK VII MASTIFF, DANISH MASTIFF)
MASTINO NAPOLETANO (MASTINO ITALIANO / NEAPOLITAN MASTIFF)
Cao de Fila da Terceira (Fila Terceirense, Rabo Torto)
CUBAN MASTIFF / CUBAN BLOODHOUND
MASTIN ESPANOL (SPANISH MASTIFF)
CA DE BOU (PERRO DE PRESA MALLORQUIN)
Perro de Toro Espanol (Spanish Bulldog)
PERRO DE PRESA CANARIO (CANARY DOG / DOGO CANARIO)
HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE MOLOSSER BREEDS
Aristotle (384 – 322 B. C.) praises the Molossers:
“In Molossis also a dog breed, serving as protector of the herds, distinguishes by its size and tremendous courage towards wild beast and above all other dogs.”
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t is said, the name Molosser derives from the tribe of the Molossi (respectively Molosser), that lived in Epirus in the northwest of Greece. The antique Epirus bordered on Thessaly and Macedonia in the east and in the north it extended to the south of today’s Albania.
The Molossi kept guardian and war dogs, being famous for their courage and ferocity and became known as “Canis Molossis” (= dog of the Molossi). Generally it is supposed that these Molosser dogs were the early, ferocious forerunners of the Mastiff and direct descendants of the Tibetan Mastiffs.
What we know for sure is that dogs accompanied men on their tours and traders and warriors took them over the great routes, still having existed in prehistoric time. However, one doesn’t know the then routes of human migration precisely, the same being valid for the dogs. Some cynologists think that the ancestors of these dogs would to be found even farer in the east, in an area, where the ancestors of the Tibetan Mastiff have been found.
Generally Mesopotamia is kept for the cradle of civilization, where the Sumerians have lived 3000 B.C. The Sumerians have been great trading people. They even came to the Indus and further, also to the Nile on land and on ship. However, they bred sheep, goats and pigs too, for which they most likely needed guardian and herding dogs. They were huge, powerful dogs with pendulous ears, which were used as fighting dogs in martial fights and for amusement towards bears, lions and donkeys. About 1000 B. C. so called “Indian dogs” or Tibetan dogs appeared. Usually they were blends from original Tibetan and native big dog strains from the Middle East. They were regarded as very dangerous with and hardly to controlling fury and were used as war dogs. About 500 B. C. Sumerians, Assyrians and Persians improved this “Tibetan dog” with aggressive native dogs. From Mesopotamia dogs would have been taken west to Egypt, the Turkey, Libya, Greece, Rome, Syracuse, Carthage and Spain.
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