Today some American busybodies are observing "No Pet Store Puppies Day," presumably by harassing pet stores that sell puppies. Pet stores I know neither have the space nor want the trouble, but there's actually a lot to be said for holding pet stores to standards for pet care and licensing them to sell kittens and puppies. The Humane Society, infested as it is with people who oppose the whole idea of anyone being so much better off than the poorest of the poor as to dare to own a home or have a pet, actually want cats and dogs to go extinct. They celebrate the loss of whole breeds of domestic animals. They need opposition and competition.
This is Angus, a 6-month-old, 60-pound puppy from Hico, Texas. More about him below.
This week's spotlight, however, falls on a dog breed whose appeal is limited.
A note on spelling: "Bull Mastiff" is two words, but on the Internet many people write "Bullmastiff" as one word to get around web filters that assume "bull" is always used in a rude way. When this web site means an insanely aggressive person, a stupid idea, or an outright lie, we say those things. When we say "bull" we mean the animal that mates with cows.
Bull Mastiffs were bred to attack people--poachers on land the lord of the manor reserved for his own hunting ground. A show-quality Bull Mastiff weighs over 100 pounds. Since dogs tend to be stronger, pound for pound, than humans are this raises considerable question about who owns, leads, or carries whom. Vets might reasonably refuse to see them even if their owners could get them into a veterinary clinic. Big strong dogs are still dogs whose natural tendency is to love and protect the humans who feed them; Bull Mastiffs can be loyal, lovable pets. Still, most people can't take proper care of a Bull Mastiff and shouldn't try.
The breed's name reflects its ancestry. It's a cross between Mastiffs, a family of super-size dog breeds, and Bulldogs, a family of flat-faced dogs bred for the ability (why beat around the bush about this?) to kill a bull. Fights between large aggressive animals were popular entertainment in bygone years. Bulls and bulldogs were thought to be well matched. Bulldogs come in all sizes, with Bull Mastiffs being the biggest and Bull Terriers being relatively small. They all have flat faces and a tendency, once they start fighting anything, to fight to the death. People who don't mind looking at these dogs (which I, personally, think are uglier than toads) say that when they're kindly treated they don't want to fight and are sweet, loyal, affectionate pets.
There are not a lot of Bull Mastiffs in these United States. Nor should there be. However, Petfinder does have a category for this breed. Most of the animals in that category are crossbreeds, smaller than "full blood" Bull Mastiffs, and still abandoned at shelters because they were too big, strong, and energetic for their previous owners to handle.
No cat breed presents the same problems Bull Mastiffs do, so should we go with Persian cats, which can have dysfunctionally flat faces, or Manx cats, which are always sturdily built (they have shoulders) and are often called ugly? Our Graybelle, a mix of Manx and Persian, shared the Bull Mastiff's most obvious and often undesirable feature; she was extra-large. She only looked as if she weighed more than 15 pounds when I lost her, but she was not quite a year old and had a lot more growing to do. The cat we believe she grew up to be did weigh about 25 pounds, and probably looked alarming to people who hadn't watched Graybelle grow up.
Why do some cats just keep growing to twice the size we expect house cats to be? They're throwbacks to their wild ancestors. Before the species was domesticated, their ancestors normally weighed 25 to 30 pounds. Humans bred selectively for the smallest cats, the ones least likely to survive on their own and thus most likely to stay close to humans. The result is a strain of domestic cats whose normal adult weight range is 10 to 15 pounds, with many individuals even smaller. Once in a while, just as two black-haired humans occasionally produce a blond child, two domestic cats produce a kitten that grows to the size that is really natural for its species. Manx and Maine Coon cats, which are normally large anyway, are two breeds that are likely to produce these throwback kittens. Extra-large cats often keep growing for more than two years; it can take five years to reach a healthy adult weight of 30 pounds.
Extra-large house cats seem usually to think of themselves as just house cats who happen to be bigger than most other cats. As kittens they learned to hug someone's ankle when they wanted to be picked up and cuddled, and then one day person noticed that they were hugging person's chest or shoulders when they reached up, instead. They have the size of bobcats but not the survival instincts. Even after educating your neighbors about these cats, it's a good idea not to let them go out alone. People just don't understand.
Because people don't understand, and because there aren't all that many extra-large cats anyway, an extra-large cat is not always available for adoption in any specific place.
The photo was on the Meow a few years ago; Lens can't find the original image.
Real wild cats (bobcats, lynxes, cheetahs) sometimes become pets too...and they have to be released into real wilderness, or kept in a large secure enclosure. People are still scared of them. They are still likely to pounce on chickens, rabbits, maybe young lambs, and they could still do a lot of damage if they played just a bit rough with humans. People do caress tigers...sometimes they wish they hadn't.
Now, the animals. Back to Angus, the adoptable Bull Mastiff crossbreed shown above.
Angus is being advertised for adoption on several Petfinder pages, but you'd be ahead to adopt him in Texas. He has serious vet bills there--get used to it. Even his rabies shots and worm treatments will probably cost more than rabies shots for a normal 30-to-50-pound dog. He's already been neutered. The basic fee is $400 and then they add $300 for transportation across the state line, whether to Arkansas or to Maine. He was found straying around Hico, Texas, with another pup, possibly dumped out and too young and dumb to realize it yet. The puppies were lured indoors, brought to the shelter, and vetted. Angus is already too big for many people even to try to lead, or lift, and he's still growing. He won't be quite as big as Clifford the Big Red Dog in the picture books of our childhood, but you may feel as if he is. He is just a baby who likes to bounce around and chew on things; he could knock you down and leave deep bleeding wounds in your hands, just learning how to use his strength for not hurting the people he loves. There is no way you could keep this dog at the same house with a small child. He will be a chore to load into a truck if you have to take him anywhere, a chore to train to walk at heel or anything else, a chore to feed, a chore for the vet to treat if he becomes ill. He will impress your friends and neighbors with his size, but considering the effect a 30-pound Aussie has on most people you want to scare away, Angus is probably overkill. But he's a sweet, lovable puppy who wants to please humans. You might want to give him a home just for that reason.
Zipcode 10101: Klaus from New Windsor
Story of a Bull Mastiff's life: He was adopted as a puppy, about three months old. Then he was sent to the shelter, about six months old, because he was getting too big for his humans to handle. He's behaved well, considering how many people don't--and shouldn't--want him. He can't help that he doesn't fit into the modern world. Adopt this fellow only if you have some experience handling dogs who are heavier and stronger than you are.
Big Daddy Blackberry from Hoboken
Sixteen sleek, healthy pounds, Big Daddy Blackberry is part Bombay and has that "fancy breed" look. He is FIV-positive so he'd do best as the only cat. He's friendly, but not recommended for children--for one thing, if you move away quickly, he may think you're playing tag and grab you. But if you can have only one cat and need to keep that cat indoors, he might be a great pet. He's accustomed to having people exclaim about what a great gorgeous beast he is. He doesn't mind.
Zipcode 20202 Maggie Mae from Luray, or Culpeper, or Georgia, or Wherever
This friendly old dog--over 7 years old, which is getting up there for an extra-large dog--needs a big yard and a strong handler, but she has good table and toilet manners and aims to please. She has had some problems with men in the past, possibly because she was driven away or dumped by one, and may behave better with women. She will almost certainly need to build a bond with the man of the house, anyway. She is one of those dogs who've been abandoned in the past and now want to stick to their human everywhere. She wants to lean her considerable weight (probably too much for the shelter's scale, because all they say is she weighs more than 101 pounds) on her human on the couch and sleep on the floor beside her human's bed. While able, she hardly seems to need to be kept in a crate or on a leash, although the law may require it; she wants to go where her human goes. She has travelled close to the length of the United States, looking for a permanent home.
Adele from Annapolis
Her web page is incomplete. Anyway, she's large but not fat, has been a house pet before, and would like to be one again.
Zipcode 30303: Athena from Rossville
Athena's web page is incomplete. They think she's half Bull Mastiff and half Border Collie. She's still under 60 pounds and may stay under 100 pounds. She might live longer than 10 years, too, and she's still young--they're not sure whether she's still growing. The adoption fee is reasonable, but the adopter needs to be prepared to live with a dog who's still bigger, stronger, bolder, AND more intelligent than the average dog. A foster care agreement might be the best way to find out whether you can cope with this dog.
Luca from Acworth
He's one of four siblings who were rescued together and are close. You need to have room for at least one of the others. There are two ways to adopt any of this cat family: by twos, or by four! This may explain why the cats have been fostered together from the age of 3 weeks to the age of 3 years. Luca is just the biggest brother. No special problems are indicated but the cats aren't good with small children.
When I selected "Bull Mastiff" on Petfinder the system automatically showed me Angus first, because he was on the page of a shelter in Tennessee. I thought it might be nice to end this post with an extra-large cat who's available for adoption on the Point of Virginia or of east Tennessee. There aren't any--listed as such. There aren't a lot of cats in shelters here, in any case, and none of them is even fat, much less oversized and healthy. However, this sixteen-pounder, who isn't listed as extra-large in the web form, has answered to the name "Gigantasaurus."
He may be some sort of cousin to my long, tall, broad-framed, muscular, absolutely never fat cat Serena, who gets called "that big fat cat" from time to time. Serena's great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and great-great-great-great-granduncle were both mackerel tabbies, like him, and were automatically called "Big Mac." Whether this cat is as nice as they were may never be known. Both "Big Macs" were abnormally kind and protective with their kittens; Gigantasaurus isn't going to sire any kittens. You may have heard, "Cats don't actually have shoulders." British cats do! Females can hide two or three pounds of kittenage before they start to look pregnant; males build bulky muscles and stalk around weighing more than a typical "American" cat does, all the time. If they learn to be cautious about plopping their weight right down on a soft, sensitive part of you as you sleep, they're not hard to live with. If you let them become obese and cranky, of course, all bets are off. An overweight pet is not a happy pet and is not likely to live with a very happy human.
The thing you'd find hard to remember, about Gigantasaurus or about Big Daddy Blackberry, is that they're not all that extra-large. They might be the biggest cats in their neighborhoods but they're not likely to be mistaken for bobcats or lynxes. This does make things easier.
