July 15, 2005

The hounds from hell

They're big, aggressive -- and increasingly popular

BARBARA RIGHTON

The attacks were ferocious -- and completely
unprovoked. In April 1998, eight-year-old Courtney
Trempe was playing with friends in Stouffville, near
Toronto, when a neighbour's bull mastiff bit and
killed her. "Mosley," a 130-lb. male, played with kids
all the time, his owner said. Then, four years ago in
San Francisco, a woman named Diane Whipple was mauled
to death by two presa canario/mastiff crossbreeds, a
112-lb. female and a 123-lb. male. But what happened
next was even more disturbing. At Canadian Humane
Society kennels, phones began to ring. People couldn't
admit they wanted a dog that had killed a child, but
"as soon as that woman died," says Humane Society
executive director Michael O'Sullivan, "they wanted
that breed." Recently, a young woman brought her cane
corso mastiff to dog trainer Adrian Vasseur near
Peterborough, Ont. Vasseur, cocky at only 19, was
shaken by what happened. "While she was talking to
me," he recalls, "she stepped on the dog's tail by
accident and, boom, it pinned her to the wall. I
wouldn't work with it. It was insane."

The popularity of cane corsos and other dog gladiators
is growing across the country, just as Ontario is
poised to ban pit bulls -- Mini Coopers to the
mastiffs' Hummers -- in August. "These great big
dangerous dogs have been creeping up slowly on the
radar," says Vancouver's Judy Stone, founder of the
Animal Advocates Society of B.C. Many owners are not
capable of handling them, and so the dogs are
relegated to a lonely existence, chained in backyards
-- or worse. "Their lives are pointless, and short,"
Stone says. "It is both a safety and a cruelty issue.
There are 400 breeds. Can't people find something
better?" The short answer is that in this age of
extreme sports, mastiffs are a dog of choice, not just
for drug dealers but for young people who want a
menacing display of arm candy.

Arguably these dogs once had a real purpose as hunting
companions and protectors of families and flocks. With
the advent of the Internet, breeds few Canadians knew,
such as the Caucasian ovcharka (a mastiff type widely
believed to be the most deadly dog on the planet)
became accessible to anyone. Reads one ovcharka
breeder's website, "Thanks to this year's buyers from
. . . British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and
Ontario." Warns another, "The Caucasian ovcharka is
far too aggressive . . . much like with the handling
of dynamite, inexperience can lead to disaster."

So it's small wonder some big dog fanciers prefer to
keep a low profile. The owner of a presa canario
kennel near Stayner, Ont., would not talk on the
record. His conversations with the Los Angeles Times
after Whipple's death gave him too much notoriety, he
says. Besides, "They twisted my words." What he was
quoted as saying then: "[The presa] is going to catch
on with lunatics before it gets a good base with
serious owners." What he will say now: "My dogs are
not the fighting strain." Besides, he sells puppies
for $2,500, and that all but guarantees a good home.
However, in the Kelowna Daily Courier this spring, a 3
1/2-year-old presa female was going for $375,
including crate.

Also available in the classifieds section of a
Vancouver paper, "fila/mastiffs" advertised as
"families' best friend, intruders' worst nightmare."
The fila is a fila Brasileiro, developed in Brazil in
the 19th century to hunt jaguars -- and runaway
slaves. They are no family's best friend, says Cindy
Tran, a veterinarian and dog-trainer in Markham, Ont.
"People have to look at a dog's genetic
predisposition. Big dogs that were bred to kill
things, may kill things." Filas, she says flatly,
"should be licensed like handguns."

It is axiomatic in the world of dog experts that no
two agree on anything. In Oxfordshire, England, bull
mastiff aficionado and dog show judge David Hancock
praises many mastiffs as "good tempered." They should
be protected from unsuitable owners, he says. "No one
with a criminal record should be allowed to own such a
dog. And anyone breeding dogs over 80 lb. should have
the stock temperament-tested by a qualified
professional." Any volunteers?

O'Sullivan warns that dogs should not be used as
protection devices. "Get an alarm system instead," he
says. Sadly, concludes Tran, "as long as common sense
is not common, people will continue to get a dog that
is not suitable. Pity the neighbours. Pity the
neighbours' kids and pity that poor slob of a dog."