This is a collection of mastiff and bulldog pictures and painting from before they were bred to ruin by the show/money breeders.
English bulldog 1803
English bulldog 1835
Working type bulldogs
More working type bulldogs
Neapolitan Mastiff 1977
Working neapolitan
Personal Protection trial Champion Dogue De Bordeaux 1949
Assyrian Lion hunting Mastiff 640 BC
Neapolitan Mastiff in Italy around 1970
1474 fresco Camera Picta – very old working mastiffs
1890 Working type Great Dane
Throw back Dogue De Bordeaux – with an agile build and a muzzle
Mastiff type dogs fighting gladiators in Rome
Roman Mastiff fighting in war
A Great Dane with an old style body with the English Boar hound head type
Old type, tucked and athletic English Mastiff
Very nice old type Neapolitan
Working Neapolitan Mastiff
Another working type Neapolitan
Spanish Bulldog
Staffordshire terrier 1910
Old type agile Alpine Mastiff aka Saint Bernard
Van Dyck Duke Wolfgang V, and his working type Great Dane
Old working Bullmastiff
These pictures reflect a function over form breeding strategy, all these dogs were bred for what they could do not to satisfy some twisted standard. A working dogs function is first and foremost to do the work for which it was bred. If a standard requires a change in the dogs form that will prevent them from doing their job, the standard is wrong. Nature does not beauty breed, wild predators are selected by their ability to survive and reproduce. Most of them are beautiful animals, without the insane distortions we’ve inflicted on dogs. Function over form naturally produces better form and function.
This links to my page for the bizarre mutants produced by “beauty breeding”
Midgard Mastiffs 