An 8 foot fence is believable. I've heard of some neo's able to do it, and I've seen a Presa at 130 lbs effortlessly clear a six foot from a sitting position, but walk 25 miles a day? Is this true? Several years ago I was looking for a quality English Mastiff. My requirements were minimum; the dog must have it's guarding instincts intact and the breeding stock tested, that it could walk about 5 miles, and run 1. I couldn't find EM's that could do any of it. I was also told they would overheat if I attempted to take them on a long walk. So, I gave up looking for a purebred mastiff and bought a bandog from South Africa, because they seem to be the only people who actually need dogs anymore. They're still breeding for function. Try explaining to friends and family that you paid for and imported a cross breed <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I would have loved to find a mastiff like you described.

Do you know of quality EM breeders who test their breeding stock for their guarding ability, and also their level of fitness? If so, how? When I was looking, I even asked someone if they were sure their dogs couldn't walk three miles, had anyone tried it? A dog not able to just walk? That's sick!! It seemed they were being bred by people who older and less active, so maybe they didn't know the potential of their dogs? I recently came across one breeder who is doing agility with her brindle mastiff, but not testing guarding capacity.

Your dog is beautiful and very fit <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Do you have more pictures of him you could link?

Reiner, your post on the boerboel is very interesting! Great read <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Barbara: "I've seen a Presa at 130 lbs effortlessly clear a six foot from a sitting position"


You and Alice must live in the same neighborhood over there in fantasy land. There are no 130lbs dogs that can clear a six foot fence from a sitting position.


CLEAR? As in jump over without touching the fence?

I have serious doubts about the englsih mastiff as a guard and protection dog,i dougt they would do good in gility.
A freind of mine is training her boerboel in agility.The dog is great!

Here you can see a male boerboel (85 kg)running beside a car:
http://www.ukbc.co.uk/boet_000003.htm

 Quote:

Barbara: "I've seen a Presa at 130 lbs effortlessly clear a six foot from a sitting position"


You and Alice must live in the same neighborhood over there in fantasy land. There are no 130lbs dogs that can clear a six foot fence from a sitting position.


CLEAR? As in jump over without touching the fence?

Yes, I wouldn't make that up! I have nothing to gain, I'm not a breeder or promoting anything. I was just as surprised to see it myself. As a matter of fact, I had him do it a few more times just to make sure what I was seeing was real. It was fast. He would crouch down in an almost sit and then just spring. Not that he was any kind of great dog because he could do that. As a protection dog, he was garbage.

Nice BB Helena <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Boet is not my dog,i just wanted to show the boerboel in action ; )
Here is some boerboelpics i took at the apprasial day in Denmark this year.Notice that they do not look the same:
http://www.zoonen.com/perzoonen/galleri.asp?oid=402811&gid=465329

A great BB to see in action is Norman Epstein's Gordo. He's training him for schutzhund. Very good looking and impressive dog! If you're interested I'll PM you a link to all his videos.

Why do they all look different in the pics you posted? Some are carrying their tails super low, or between their legs.

Why they look so different? different breedings i guess.
I only saw 2! boerboels at this apraisal that i thought looked like a boerboel..the apprasial judge thought like ,i guess,the highest scoring dog that day scored 84 % not that high.My OWN female scored 84 %..
I saw one dog that looked like a young great dane,i sa another that looked like a bull amstiff,and yet another that looked like a lab mix..
I saw dogs with very poor temperament,fearful,but many ,i thought seemed to have nice stable temperament.

 Quote:

An 8 foot fence is believable. I've heard of some neo's able to do it, and I've seen a Presa at 130 lbs effortlessly clear a six foot from a sitting position, but walk 25 miles a day? Is this true?

absolutely! i was a wilderness ranger with the forest service and my mastiff was my pack dog and companion for many months at a time in the mountains. i have some pictures of him at work on my computer at work (i'm home now). we started this job when he was four years old. he had no training or preparation for it. he was backpacking in the mountains with me until quite late in life. he was nine years old when we took our last 5-day trip together, with him carrying about 30 lbs. in his saddlebags! i usually covered about 20 miles a day on my rounds.

 Quote:

Several years ago I was looking for a quality English Mastiff. My requirements were minimum; the dog must have it's guarding instincts intact and the breeding stock tested, that it could walk about 5 miles, and run 1. I couldn't find EM's that could do any of it. I was also told they would overheat if I attempted to take them on a long walk. So, I gave up looking for a purebred mastiff

i almost gave up, too. like i said, i've been in the breed since 1966. after sam, my aforementioned forest service pack dog, died in 1990, at the age of 11 1/2, i took a ten-year hiatus from dog ownership. he was just too irreplaceable. little did i know how irreplaceable!

when i was ready to get a dog again, i was not able to warm up to other breeds. i have very specific requirements in mind, that none of the other breeds i knew of could meet. unfortunately, in the 20+ years since my last mastiff puppy, that breed had changed a lot, too!

all the breeders i spoke to thought it was ridiculous to get a mastiff for any kind of athletic pursuit, and warned me about not overexercising, not letting them use stairs, jump, etc. i thought *they-* were ridiculous! well, they had ruined the breed. we never used to have ACL tears in mastiffs; now they all seem to get them. the dogs have become fragile. how awful.

it took me three years but i found a mastiff breeder who knew and loved the same version of the breed i knew and loved, and who had dedicated 25 years of her life to preserving the mastiff athlete and producing working mastiffs. interestingly, her foundation dog was a first cousin to my sam, and had all of his athletic and intellectual talent. a half-sister of sam's went on to become the foundation bitch for lyonhurst mastiffs, in ohio, and i hear good things about them as well, though they have not stuck to the old style as my breeder has.

anyway, if you are still interested in a healthy, athletic, long-lived, working mastiff, feel free to look up my breeder, lisa nicolello, of gold coast mastiffs. ben appears on her website under "family and friends" as a pup on top of the continental divide, during his first pack trip. he has proved to be the healthiest and most athletic mastiff i've had, has aced all of his health tests, and has a very high drive.

i don't know about "testing" guarding capacity. all mastiffs i have known are natural guardians. that is hard-wired into the breed. if you mean their potential for attacking, well, it's not advised with the mastiff breed. they really aren't suited to it. though lisa, my breeder, has competed with her mastiffs in schutzhund. there are pictures on her website.

 Quote:

Your dog is beautiful and very fit <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Do you have more pictures of him you could link?

thanks. i posted some pictures of him in the introductions page when i first came. i'll PM you some pics if you wish, later this week, when i'm back at my other computer. in the meantime, take a look at lisa's website. i don't have the link here, but you can google "gold coast mastiffs" and you'll get there. i think she may have what you are looking for.

I'm not looking for an EM anymore. I gave up. I figured that I'd eventually find someone who said they had what I was looking for, but was bs'ing. What I'm really looking for is a dog like my male mastiff mix. Since you've been into mastiffs so long, would you be able to tell me if this dog has EM in it? It was suggested by a few that he did, which is where I got the EM idea.

http://photobucket.com/albums/c97/TiggerPics_1972/?sc=6

I'm looking for a perfected well bred version of him, purebreed, cross breed, it doesn't matter. He's friendly and nice around regular people, he can take a lot of physical and psychological pressure in real life scenarios, while still being extremely stable in normal circumstances. He's very protective yet discerning and has strong nerve. He has HD though, so a good kick to his hips from a real bad guy will take him down.

While I like that your breeder has earned CD's and CDX's on the dogs, they don't mention testing the protection ability of the dogs. I do believe that kind of thing gets hard wired into properly bred dogs, but only if it's tested consistently to make sure it's there to begin with. I doubt anyone who's earning CDX's is testing the protectiveness thoroughly. I also think sometimes people call certain behaviors protective, when it's in fact nervy. The only way to know for sure is to test hard. A nervy 180 pound mastiff would be a nightmare, and probably not hold up under pressure. I can get one more dog so I have to choose carefully, but not until I figure out what I'm doing with my female work wise. She sounds similar to Ben...

Sure, send me pictures of Ben when you get a chance. I'd love to see <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />