Natural History

I do not know when this piece was written, but its author, Christopher Habig, is still an active Neapolitan mastiff fancier from Germany. It had to have been written before this breed became relatively popular in the English-speaking world. This piece tells us a lot about how this breed developed into its present form, and it really doesn’t have much to do with dog shows at all:

Most Europeans are a bit familar with some ‘dimensions’ of Naples, as there are occasional reports about life in the city. These are usually concerned with the Camorra who are partly responsible for the fact that Naples has become the most violent city in Europe with 300 deaths a year. Then we hear about the traffic chaos, the masses of unemployed people without equal in Europe and child labour. Or, not to forget, the romantic aura of Naples springs to our minds, which for some of us is enough to make our hearts beat faster. If you ever go there you will find some truth in all of this and probably leave with the feeling that nowhere in the world is there quite so much vitality”, as another magazine, STERN put it in April this year.

What about the Mastini? Is it right to say Naples has little to do with them? No, it is not! The Mastino belongs to Naples and all ‘dimensions’ of it. It is rightly called ‘mastino Napoletano’. Yet, a lot of Mastino fanciers and breeders no longer learn to associate Napoli with their Mastini. But what is the reason?

There are in fact several good ones. For instance, you can only get a Mastino in Naples if you have connections to insiders, unless you are willing to pay extortionate prices, Sometimes it is even the other way round: without excellent Connection, you will never have the privilege to buy the expensive dogs as these are the superb ones you just get the poor ones for a normal price. The kennel conditions are not always what they should be and we must not forget that Southern Italy is a good deal poorer than the North which can often have a detrimental impact.

At present there are only two breeders in Germany and only a few in America and France who knows the ropes there and without local help it is virtually impossible as I found out. In other words it is easier and safer to get hold of a sound Mastino pup elsewhere. Naples nevertheless remains the “Mastino Capital” and a visit there, of more than one or two days of course, is a question of honour for Mastino friends! You cannot understand a Mastino unless you understand its culture and social scene he originated in, hence Naples!

If we read between the lines of Habig’s piece, we see exactly what was going on here. Naples is in the south of Italy, and the southern part of Italy is quite poor. If you know anyone of Italian ancestry living in the US or Canada, they very likely descend from immigrants who came from the southern part of Italy or Sicily.  Those areas were always less developed than the north, and many people came to US and Canada in search of a better life.

Even in the twentieth century, life was less than roseate for many people living in southern Italy.

If one really reads between the lines of this piece, the Neapolitan mastiff was essentially a cash cow for many people living in that area. They were not interested in breeding working dogs at all. They were interested in breeding dogs that really impressed foreign dog buyers, who then paid exorbitant prices for these animals.

There is nothing wrong with selling dogs for money. I’m not one of these people who attacks someone for making a little money off the dogs they sell.

However, there is something wrong with selling dogs with only the market value as a metric of quality. It’s very easy produce what buyers want, and one can easily do it at value.

Foreign dog buyers already had an idea of what they wanted in a Neapolitan mastiff. They wanted the extremes. And because virtually no one in the area around Naples was using the dogs for anything, they happily set to work breeding for the extremes.

This article strongly suggests that it was not the show ring that created the Neapolitan mastiff as we know it today. It was simple market forces, and the simple reality that some Neapolitan dog breeders were going to take advantage of the opportunity. I don’t blame the Neapolitans for breeding their dogs to fit the needs of foreign buyers. I do blame the foreign buyers for coming into that part of Italy with an already preconceived notion of what a Neapolitan mastiff should be. The created a demand for a dog that simply had extreme conformation as its only metric of value.

And under these selection pressures, it doesn’t take very long for the dogs to really become extreme very quickly.

It didn’t matter that the dogs that were actually used for anything of value in southern Italy were always far less extreme and far more athletic than the dog the foreign fanciers required. The real money wasn’t in producing good quality working mastiffs. The money was in producing the dog that German and American dog fanciers wanted to buy.

Couple that with the poverty in southern Italy, and you have a situation in which the old-type Neapolitan mastiff simply couldn’t survive.

You’ll note that there is an implication that Neapolitan mastiff fanciers from abroad were leery of buying dogs from Naples. That strongly suggests that many less informed and perhaps somewhat avaricious dog dealers were producing lots of crappy dogs to sell to the foreigners, who were beguiled by any extreme dog they happened to come across.  That means that a lot of foreigners paid insane prices for dogs that looked impressive but were in such terrible health that no one in their right mind would have spent that kind of money on them.

But there were people who wanted these dogs. They believed all the hype about how the last of the Roman molossus remained in the southern Italian countryside neat the city of Naples. They ran off to Naples in search of these dogs, and when the locals figured out they could make a good supplement to their income by breeding the most extreme dogs possible, they did so.

And that is probably the main reason why the Neapolitan mastiff evolved into the creature it has become. It was market forces from people who had more money than they had sense that distorted the Neapolitan mastiff. These distortions would later become enshrined in the breed standard, and virtually everyone has forgotten what the original working mastiff from southern Italy even looked like.

It’s gone down the memory hole.

And the fantasy that these are ancient Roman dogs adds to their mystique.

Anyone who owns one can pretend that he or she is living with a piece of ancient history, and the extreme conformation is exactly what the Romans wanted for this dog.

Never mind the facts.

The fantasy is that much better.

Even if you have to pay some guy in Naples $7,000 for a dog that later turns out to have both hypothyroidism and hip dysplasia.

This was the gladiator’s dog.

And I am Maximus Decimus Meridius. At my signal, unleash Hell!

Too bad that ol’ Hell is too crippled to walk anywhere.

Otherwise, he’d be pretty dangerous.