like the early bulldogs of England that, in turn, looks distinctly like the APBTs of today. Research into the Brabanter found that this breed possessed many of the attributes admired in the early bulldogs and later in the APBT. Gameness (a primary APBT quality), the ability to stubbornly hang onto a bull, adaptability in working bulls or even swine, and sturdy, squarely built bodies were all well-known Brabanter characteristics.
The astute canine student and writer John P. “Jack” Wagner wrote in 1939 that the Brabanters (the small bullenbeisser) rather than the severely short-faced, undershot, and squatty English Bulldog were the probable ancestors of the Boxer. The Brabanter, to Wagner and several other experts, bore a remarkable resemblance to the APBT of today. Wagner even hypothesizes that the Bulldog could trace its genetic steps back to the mastiff through the smaller bullenbeisser, the Brabanter. Thus, this pocket version of the mastiff, the Brabanter, could possibly be the parent of the bulldogs that were later bred to be the Bulldog we know today. If this is true, the APBT could definitely descend from the Brabanter and similar tough, smaller mastiffs.
Many avowed modern game-bred—the term “game-bred” today is taken to mean dogs bred for fighting or other hunting sports—APBT breeders discount the “T” in APBT. They have long claimed that the APBT of today is not a mixture of terrier and bulldog as is commonly accepted as fact, but the lineal descendant of the actual early bulldog. Wagner seemed to hold a similar view and his thinking centered on the Boxer, one of the bull breeds related to the APBT. Except for the head, the Boxer is a very similar breed in size and appearance to the APBT.
Terriers (Theoretically)
Some of the world’s greatest terrier breeds come from England. With all due consideration to the bulldog-only claims of the game-bred APBT fans, it seems almost certain that the breed we know as the APBT is most assuredly of bulldog-and-terrier blending. The very availability of many excellent terriers in Britain bodes well for the proposition that these sturdy “earth dogs” fit in somewhere in the genetic amalgam that is the APBT.
That the word “terrier” has always been more or less historically attached to the pit dogs is another dispute to the “pure bulldog of ancient origins” theory held by many game-bred dog and dog-fighting enthusiasts. Even if the “bulldog” meant any dog that fought bulls, as some of this theory’s proponents strongly assert, that does not mean that all dogs that later fought in the pit were bulldogs. This is more than just an argument based on semantics; this is an argument based on genetics.
Breeders of Germany’s bulldog breed, the Boxer, have never denied that a Bulldog, Dr. Toenniessen’s Tom (an English import) was the grandsire of the great matriarch of the Boxer breed, Meta Von der Passage No. 30. Meta appears in the extended pedigree of most of the great modern Boxers. Tom, the Bulldog, was described as not at all like the “… cloddy, low-to-the-ground, grotesque English Bulldog…”
Tom, also possibly contributed some of the genes for all-white and predominantly white dogs that still occasionally appear in Boxer litters to this day. Tom was “… muscular, square-built, long-legged,” a small mastiff-type dog. Wagner says of Dr. Toenniessen’s Tom, “He probably did much to help in those early days [1890s], particularly in speeding the arrival of our present head characteristics, which are so essential to good general appearance.”
The point of mentioning the Boxer in the history of the APBT is that Boxer breeders strongly assert that their breed too has absolutely no terrier ancestry. None! The head of the Boxer is much more like that of a lightly built Bulldog than is the classic head of an APBT. If this one Bulldog, Dr. Toenniessen’s Tom, impacted on the Boxer’s head shape so much, why then, if they are completely descended from the original bulldog of England, do not more APBTs have heads like Boxers? Could it be that APBTs have some terrier ancestry and Boxers don’t? The long-held terrier theory makes as much sense as claiming that a breed that has been bred specifically for gameness and pit abilities would never have been crossed with terriers at any time over the past two centuries!
The pit dogs that became the ancestors of the APBT weren’t the only pit fighting dogs in England, even if they were direct descendents of some sort of “original bulldog.” In the American Book of the Dog, by Shields, 1891, an Englishman relates his story about his experienced fighting terrier “Crack,” that killed his pit opponent in 48 minutes. He also had a bitch named “Floss.” Floss fought a female pit dog (described as a bull-and-terrier) until “Floss set to and killed her.” The defeated dogs were recognized pit dogs of the day while Crack and Floss were both Airedale Terriers.
This was a time when pit winners brought good prices and were bred to other pit winners to produce more pit winners. Is it really logical to believe that with dogs like Floss and Crack (and many other good fighting terriers), no significant terrier ancestry crept into the APBT?
British Attitudes of the Time
It is easy to sit in twenty-first century America and look back on the seventeenth century English and caustically criticize them for the wide variety of “blood sports” that were in evidence in that time. Without offering any defense for these bloody spectacles, an historical overview of the time may shed some light on why they did what they did. Perhaps this overview can also give some glimpse into the society that produced the bulldogs that fought bulls and bears (and other animals) and that provided the genetic framework, with or without the help of terriers, of the ancestors of the APBT.
Any student of English history during this period knows that life in the British Isles was quite harsh for the majority of the people. This majority excluded those of royalty, nobility, and wealth. Average Britons were abysmally poor. They could not read. They worked from dawn to past dusk at backbreaking work in mines, on small landholdings, at the docks, in factories, and as servants to the large landowners. Their lives were hard and short. In Ireland and Scotland, existence was even more precarious. Opportunities for pleasure and relief from drudgery were rare.
Perhaps as an opiate to their lives of pain and bleakness, the British developed a callused view of life. Cockfighting was brought to its highest zenith in the British Isles. Bulland bearbaiting were the only major diversions many common people had in their entire lives. When these activities were outlawed in 1835, they continued to be held clandestinely. But bears and bulls cannot be baited quietly in some out-of-the-way place. More often, a simpler form of blood sport, dogfighting, replaced bull-and bearbaiting. The British people’s hard and brutal lives were sometimes reflected in the hardness and the brutality of the only spectator events they were able to see.
In bullbaiting and later, in dog-fighting, the element of chance was always there. The much smaller dog might somehow triumph over the much larger bull or bear, just as a poor person might somehow one day become a person of wealth. In dogfighting, a poor dogfighter who could develop a great dog could go head to head vicariously with the son of an earl or with the rich landed gentry. Just this glimmer of hope was enough for many poor Britons.
A Tale of Two Terriers
A brother breed to the APBT is the Boston Terrier (colloquially and unpopularly still called the “Boston Bull Terrier” by uninformed people). The original Boston Terrier is clearly a very close relative of the original APBT. A number of books about the Boston Terrier make the following assertions:
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