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Bullmastiff History
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A fairly recent breed, the Bullmastiff was created to do a very particular job and to do it well. During the 19th century, Britain’s landed gentry were besieged with a drastic increase in poaching on their estates. To stop the poachers, groundskeepers needed a fearless dog that could chase down and subdue a poacher, but the working breeds commonly available in Britain at the time were not particularly well suited to this job. The solution for the Britons, therefore, was to take dogs they already had and combine them into a new, specialized breed. The Mastiff was large and imposing, but lacked the speed and tenacity to take down poachers; conversely, the Bulldog was fast and furious but was too small to make much of a guard dog. By combining these dogs, both abundantly available in England at the time, breeders created the perfect night watchman and sentry, the Bullmastiff.
Eventually, breeders decided that propagating a purebred Bullmastiff was preferable to continued pairing of Bulldogs and Mastiffs. They decided that a perfect combination would be sixty percent Mastiff and forty percent Bulldog. By the early 20th century, such dogs had been bred, and the Bullmastiff was recognized by the English Kennel Club in 1924. The breed was concurrently introduced to the United States, where it was recognized by the American Kennel Club in 1933.
