Posted by JSF13 on 11/25/2005, 11:48 am, in reply to "Re: Information Butch requested"
72.136.12.107

On the Presa boards they say the neo was used to reconstruct the presa. THE MODERN PRESAS CANARIOS After the 1970's, support increased for the Presa Canario dog and as a consequence dog fights came back as well. Some of the old fighters participated with their dogs (which, as we have said before, had nothing to do with the old Presas). To obtain Presa dogs, the enthusiast would crossbreed different foreign breeds such as the English bulldog, the bull terrier, the English mastiff, the NEOPOLITAN MASTIFF(Mastino Napolitano), the Staffordshire bull terrier, the American Pit Bull Terrier, the Dobermann, the Bullmastiff, the Great Dane, the Dogue de Bordeaux, the Fila Brasileiro, the Spanish Mastiff, the American Bulldog, and the Rhodesian Ridgeback. In Gran Canaria the Perro de Ganado Majorero was frequently used, though not so in Tenerife. The breeds used most often in Gran Canaria were (since the beginning and in order of importance): the Neapolitan mastiff, the Great Dane, the English Mastiff, and the Perro de Ganado Majorero. After the 1980's the American Staffordshire Terrier and the American Pit Bull Terrier were also used. In Tenerife the most used were the bulldog, the bullmastiff, the Great Dane and sometimes the Dogo de Burdeaux and the Staffordshire Bull Terrier. In the 1990's the American Staffordshire Terrier have occasionally been used. The Rhodesian Ridgebacks and the Fila Brasileiro haven't been used very much and only in Gran Canaria, as far as we know. The consequence of this crossbreeding is the morpho-phenotypical diversity of the modern Presa Canario. And so it isn't easy at all to raise and select for a prototype as described in the standard. In order to attain the approximate phenotype that we have set as a goal (not the ideal, of course, which is impossible to attain in any breed), there must be some genetic constant in a good part of the existing Presa population with which to work from. And this is impossible given the circumstances I've described above. So someone who attend to a Monograph or a Specialty, although little he or she may know about canine matters, quickly realizes the lack of homogeneity that there is among the dogs. The solution to this serious problem (which has been the case in many of the breeds we know of today that are perfectly established, genetically speaking) will slowly be solved over time as long as only the most robust, similar, healthy (in the broadest sense of the word), functional, etc. specimens are used. To use those Presas with character flaws, psychic imbalance, poor structure, undershot bite, missing premolars, dysplastic, atypical, is a terrible mistake which is committed all too often. Published in Magazine "Todo perros" Nº 40 y 41 - Febrary - March, 1998. Manuel Curtó Gracia "