Where Do We Come From? (The Origin of the Breed)
As far as human suppositions have almost no boundaries, if the
Reader wants to get factual and concise historical data, we’d
recommend Him to skip up to the last sentence of this article,
if though He wants to submerge into bright theories and
interpretations, and comfortable place for reading is ready for
Him, it would be nice to proceed in succession.
THE ORIGIN OF THE BREED
The less doubtful about
the breed is its membership of a large family of Molossers - huge
in size, with pushed in (brachycephalic) head protective dogs
originated in Eurasia.
The most debatable question,
though, is how ancestors of the Dogue de Bordeaux appeared on the
territory of Modern France.
As the data available are scarce, there are many theories and
often contradicting ideas. Time here is the main headliner.
Three stretches of time are referred to in this connection.
1) The most recent reference is
the time of Roman Empire. It connects the French breed
with Mollossers - extinct breed of Epirus (the territory enclosing
modern North-West Greece and South Albany (just opposite the
island Corfu)) that gave general name to all Mollosus dogs.
2) Other theories state that Dogue’s ancestors were imported in
France by Phoenician traders before
Roman
invasion. They were Assyrian war dogs spread in
Mesopotamia and later – in Egypt.
3) The farthest time stretch is referred to by theorists who claim
the Dogue de Bordeaux is a descendant of an indigenous dog breed of Aquitaine.
Such claim is maid as on the territory of France some Dogue bones
dating from prehistory were found. It is also claimed, that
indigenous Mastiff-like dogs existed on the whole territory of
Eurasia so the Dogue de Bordeaux should descends directly from
ancient indigenous Dogue of Aquitaine. Anyhow, it’s obvious, that
the archaeological data are not sufficient enough to serve an
indisputable argument in favor of the theory.