Saturday, September 12, 2009

What Type of Dog?



What type or types of dogs are these?
What were they bred for?



The answer: The top two are Boxers and are, in fact two of the most famous early Boxers. The animal on the left is Alt's Schecken No.50 in 1893, while the animal on the right is Flock St Salvator No.14, taken in 1894. See here for more.

The animal at the bottom is an American Pit Bull which is both UKC and ADBA registered.

All three dogs were bred to grab animals and hold them -- cattle and wild pig in particular.  These are butcher's dogs, along with the Rottweiler and the Dogue de Bordeaux. 

The point here is these dogs are essentially the same breed -- a point missed by those who say "that's not a Pit Bull, that's a Boxer-American Bulldog cross."

Here a hint: an American Bulldog is a Pit Bull. So too are a number of the various cocked up molosser breeds like the Dogo Argentino.

Of course, what you breed for is what you get, but it does not happen quite as quickly as a name change does it? And if the animal is still being bred as a game bred dog by many, it may not happen at all.
.

5 comments:

sassanik said...

Guessing old style bulldogs?

Connemara said...

Well, the two B&W photos look like the original Bulldogs. The color photo looks to me like some type of mastiff... which predates the bulldog.
Depending on who is telling it and their motives, what they were bred for often varies.

My best guess.

Sheila said...

Is it a Dogo Argentino? If it is, it is bred historically for hunting larger game and more recently for fighting and police/military/service work.

Stoutheartedhounds said...

The modern APBT is a fighting dog. Some are used on wild pigs, but most "game-bred" APBT are fighting dogs. English staffs and Bull Terriers have also been used/bred for fighting. The butcher's dogs you pictured are not bred for fighting other dogs.

PBurns said...

Butchers dogs are butchers dogs, and they were all bred for the same thing -- grabbing pigs and cows by the the face. As the pictures make clear, the American Pit Bull, the Am. Staff, the Dogue and the Boxer were completely identical and undifferentiated at the turn of the Century except buy color. The Rotty was a bit heavier as a rule, but it was still the "Rottweiler Metzgerhund" or Rottweiler butcher's dog. The Dogue was the Bordeaux Bulldog, the Boxer the "Bullenbeisser". Here's a few pictures of of the early boxers -- Pit Bulls everyone: http://www.ukboxerdogs.co.uk/history.html#show


Sure Rotties and Boxers and Dogues been bred to be pets (at least since WWII) and the same argument can be made for Am. Staffs in the AKC and UKS pits as well (Colby never fought a dog I am told).

And yet.... and yet... there's still a reason it was Rotties and Dobermans that ate Gregory Peck (who got eaten by a lot of breeds over the years it should be said!). One was a butcher's dog, the other a breed created by a tax collector to bite the slow-to-give. Rotties, Boxers, and Pit Bulls and Dogues and Presios and the like have alway been aggressive -- one reason they were prefered in WWII as guard dogs. Most Pit Bulls, to be clear, are NOT bred for fighting and they never have been. That said, if you are solely or mainly breeding for looks or quick cash (i.e. most dog breeders who do not know enough about their stock to be doing much else), you are NOT washing out the genes that lead to those high-amps coursing through a dog. And it only takes once bad corss go bring those amps back -- one reason Pitts are the most likely to kill people, but Rotts and Boxers are right up there too.