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Washington, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Friday, June 13, 2008

gracie is a mastiff





Isn't she something? She belongs to one of my coworkers, who adopted her as a rescue. Can you tell how big she is? Huge. And with such a soft mink-like coat!

I went looking for an article on mastiffs to bring to you all. Look what I found: one that was originally published in 1920! An excerpt:

The word "Mastiff" is derived from the Latin massivius, meaning massive or
large, but at different times the names Tie-dog and Ban-dog have been applied to
the Mastiff'. At an early date they were undoubtedly used to guard flocks and
herds as well as homes. Later they were trained to fight bulls, bears, lions,
and other animals imported for that purpose. Three well-trained Mastiffs, it is
recorded, were considered a fair match for a bear, four for a lion. . .

2 comments:

Ark Lady said...

Gracie is a neopolitan mastiff--which was though to be an ancient breed and rediscovered in Italy around the 1940s.

There are different breeds called mastiff (they all look very different) so if you search on the entire breed name you'll turn up more information.

She is cute...probably drooly.

curator said...

Wow, that is terrific info! I don't know if her "mom" even knows she's a Neopolitan mastiff.