I love all dogs. On the weekends I occasionally work at a dog day care, so I see all types/sizes/breeds/behaviors. After dealing with hundreds of dogs, I think I will always be a mastiff person.
If you asked me in high school, I thought I would always be a lab person. My parents have a yellow and black lab/australian cattle dog mix. They are incredible. They are loyal, they listen, good size dogs, and so easy to train.
That being said, we now have 2 mastiffs and I am hooked (Beef is a St. Bernard/English Mastiff mix and Baine is a Neopalitan/Bull Mastiff mix). All breeds have their pros and cons, but here is why I am a Mastiff Maniac.
They are Lazy-
Ryan and I are busy. We both coach, I travel a lot for work, and we have busy social calendars. The last thing we need is a dog who needs to go for a 10 mile run and then still wants to come home and play the rest of the night in the back yard. When we go for a mile walk, they are done for the day. We have a fenced in back yard, so we pretty much let them out a couple times a day and they are good. One nice thing about having two dogs is that they do entertain each other. Even getting Baine to come for a treat during training was difficult. He was very comfortable in his seated position.
They don't need a lot of room-
While they are big dogs, they are known as apartment dogs because they are so lazy. They pretty much just want to lay at your feet the whole day. Even if you have a large house, you are just going to be tripping over them the whole time because they are at your feet.
They serve as excellent protection-
We have 300 pounds of dog sitting at our front door. No one is breaking in.
Scary, huh?
Wouldn't hurt a fly-
While they are great protection, only because people don't know what they would do. They are both great with people, kids, other dogs. Beef is not the best dog to walk, he pulls a little, but as soon as Ryan's neice or nephew take the leash, he knows he can't. A little girl came up to Baine when we were at a lacrosse game and before I knew it he was licking her face. I melted.
They are just big lap dogs-
It gets pretty cold here in upstate New York. There is not a lot better than curling up with a glass of wine and being warmed up by the heat from the dogs. It is not as great when they lay in bed with you and then you can't lift up the covers and so instead you go to sleep freezing.
Low maintenance-
Along with being lazy and not needing to be excercised a lot, they also don't have to be groomed often. They have short hair, don't shed a ton (the St bernard part of Beef on the other hand), and pretty much can take care of themselves.
They are lookers-
I am not going to lie, I enjoy walking down the street or going to a game and bringing them and people being awed by them. It is fun.
While again, I love this breed(s), they are not perfect. They drool, they fart a lot, they don't have a long life span, they are VERY stubborn, I wouldn't change them for the world.
What is your favorite dog breed?
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