Dogs and All about Them

The following description of a perfect Mastiff, taken from the Old English Mastiff Club's Points of a Mastiff, is admirable as a standard to which future breeders should aim to attain. POINTS OF THE MASTIFF: GENERAL CHARACTER AND SYMMETRY--Large, massive, powerful, symmetrical and well-knit frame. A combination of grandeur and good nature, courage and docility. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF HEAD--In general outline, giving a square appearance when viewed from any point. Breadth greatly to be desired, and should be in ratio to length of the whole head and face as 2 to 3. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF BODY--Massive, broad, deep, long, powerfully built, on legs wide apart, and squarely set. Muscles sharply defined. Size a great desideratum, if combined with quality. Height and substance important if both points are proportionately combined. SKULL--Broad between the ears, forehead flat, but wrinkled when attention is excited. Brows (superciliary ridges) slightly raised. Muscles of the temples and cheeks (temporal and masseter) well developed. Arch across the skull of a rounded, flattened curve, with a depression up the centre of the forehead from the medium line between the eyes, to half way up the sagittal suture. FACE OR MUZZLE--Short, broad under the eyes, and keeping nearly parallel in width to the end of the nose; truncated, i.e. blunt and cut off square, thus forming a right angle with the upper line of the face, of great depth from the point of the nose to under jaw. Under jaw broad to the end; canine teeth healthy, powerful, and wide apart; incisors level, or the lower projecting beyond the upper, but never sufficiently so as to become visible when the mouth is closed.