White English Mastiffs

                                English Alaunt type Mastiffs                                     Abraham Hondius Mastiff 1677

The Mastiffs

"So far as the Mastiff is concerned, it has a longer history than most. Caesar describes them in his account of invading Britain in 55 BC, when they fought beside their masters against the Roman legions with such courage and power as to make a great impression. Soon afterward we find several different accounts of the huge British fighting dogs brought back to Rome where they defeated all other varieties in combat at the Circus. They were also matched against bulls, bears, lions, and tigers.

Today we are likely to think of such cruel spectacles as belonging only to the dim ages of the past, but this is not true. Dog fights, bull-baiting, and bear-baiting were respectable and popular forms of amusement in England and America little more than a century ago. While the Mastiff was always in front rank as a fighting dog, this does not account for his popularity in England for two thousand years. It was as ban dogs, or tie-dogs, (tied by day but loose at night), that they were found everywhere...By this means, wolves and other savage game were kept under control. They were also used in hunting packs by the nobility. It was protection of the home however, that they were most used, and probably as a result of centuries of such service the Mastiff has acquired unique traits as a family dog.

Herodotus tells of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire who, about 550 BC, received a Mastiff as a gift from the King of Albania. Cyrus matched the dog against another and also set it against a bull. Bull the Mastiff was meek, so Cyrus, in disgust, had it killed. News of this reception of his gift came back to the King of Albania. He sent another Mastiff-a bitch-to Cyrus, telling him that a Mastiff was no ordinary cur and that it scorned to notice such common creatures as a Persian dog or a bull...Whereupon, says Herodotus, the Mastiff bitch was set to attack an elephant and did so with such fury and efficiency that she worried the elephant down to the ground and would have killed it.

That is probably the tallest Mastiff tale on record! However it gives proof of the reputation of Mastiffs as powerful, agile, and courageous dogs. It is even more interesting to know that Albania was the land of the people known as Alani, an Asiiatic race. Also that similar names stand for 'mastiffs', e.g. Alano, Alan, and Alaunt." The AKC 19th Edition

Chaucer, described the Old English Mastiff in his "Knight's Tale"... "About his char ther wenten white Alaunt...the white color is authentic."

In the tale of Albania 550 BC, we can concur, this dog was actually non-aggressive, but serious! Note the references to fighting bulls, which tells simply, the Bulldog and Mastiff are the same breed. The White English, aka Old English White, is the only breed I know that produces both in the same litter, and has always been used to protect livestock and family. 

"It was Henry VIII who set up the office of 'Master of the royal Game of Bears and Mastyve Dogs', (the term 'Mastiff' believed to be of Norman origin from Latin 'Massivus' had been used in earlier writings, often in conjunction with the Alaunt to describe the same dog), but it was under the patronage of his daughter Queen Elizabeth I, (1558 - 1603), that the sports of bull and bear baiting became most popular. Ben Johnson mentions both bulldogs and 'bear dogs' in his play 'The Silent Woman', (1609). But it is in a letter from an English merchant in Spain, Preston Eastwick, dated 1631, that we have both the closest proximity to the modern spelling and the first distinction between bulldogs and mastiffs, when he wrote home for supplies and:...a good mastiff dogge...and two good bulldogs. We also know know that this breed went out to Spain, Majorca, and Cuba between 1556 and 1649."    The Story of the Real Bulldog

Old English Whites

When the English invaded the southeastern region of North America in 1733, they were faced with Alaunts of the older type, working cattle and protecting the Spanish forts and missions. Hence they referred to these old type dogs as White English or Old English Whites, (referring to those imported by the Spanish settlers in the Americas between 1556 and 1649, a time of settlement by the Spanish in La Florida). These dogs imported by the Spanish settlers were different in function than those brought by the Conquistadores. The Spanish of course brought mainly Spanish Alanos and English Alaunts, which were strains of the same breed - the Alaunt. Owing to the simple fact that the Spanish were ranchers, they mostly brought Alaunt of the Butchers / (shepherds') mastiffs to work cattle. "For the purpose of hunting, he said, the Spaniards introduced pureblood greyhounds, beagles, retrievers, setters, pointers, spaniels, and whippets. The mastiffs, according to the Inca chronicler, was the last type of dog to be introduced and he claims it was used primarily as a watchdog. Some of these dogs were brought to devour Indians, others to guard the thousands of swine that accompanied the expedition. Mastiffs, Garcilaso explains, were greatly esteemed by owners of domestic cattle...these men, as a matter of pride, wished their herds to resemble those of their homeland."  Dogs of the Conquest  As well, they brought various cur dogs, and the breed, Cracker Cur as well as other cur dogs and White English Bulldogs, aka Old English Whites are still employed by cattlemen today.

The Shepherds' Mastiff / Bulldog Proper is where the WEB got it's name; it was a reference to this old dog of England given to the dogs by the English settlers in the southeast. The dogs they saw here were of Spanish descent and not English though, brought and developed by the Spanish; as Spain had their own version of the Shepherds' Mastiff / Bulldog Proper; it was the Alano. Read more here: American Alanos.

In 1960, it was determined the Alano of Spain was extinct and several breeders have been rebuilding, through crossbreeding, and registering as Alanos. However, a few concerned Spanish purists began 25 years ago, collecting the few remaining Alanos from farms in rural Spain, and breed them with no cross-breeding, registering them with SEFCA. The amazing similarity to this program is that of the WEBPS, and the comparison of both form and function is phenomenal. However, let us not forget those like the Carr family that has long WEBs in their proper form, while those breeders of American Bulldogs have used bulldogs of various cross-breedings. Furthermore, the original name for ABs was American Pit Bull Dogs, owing to their bull-baiting past. "Pit Bull  - the term derives from the Pit Bulldog of the nineteenth century, those dogs of bull and terrier blood which were used in the sport of bull-baiting."   Canine Lexicon   Genetically, Pit Bulldogs, (American Bulldogs), and Pit Bull Terriers are basically strains of the same breed type. In comparison, the Alanos of SEFCA and WEBs of WEBPS are basically strains of the same breed type.   see Pit Bulldog  and  Bulldog Proper