28 Modern Dogs. 



better had they been a little less underhung. It 

 is given in the ' Description of the Mastiff/ that 

 the muzzle is to be blunt, and at a right angle with 

 the upper line of the face ; an impossibility if one 

 jaw is to protrude so far beyond the other. 



11 When good qualities are exaggerated for we 

 can have too much of a good thing or become 

 altogether ignored, it is necessary to make allusion 

 thereto. Mere show points are for the considera- 

 tion of the fancier alone, perhaps, but even he 

 should insist upon soundness of limb and develop- 

 ment of those parts indicative of power, activity, 

 and a good constitution. Many of our mastiffs are 

 not all they should be in forelegs and feet, many are 

 narrow-breasted and contracted in the ribs, evidence 

 of a bad constitution, and many more have weak stifles, 

 weak hocks, and thighs almost devoid of muscle. 



" The actual length of the face is of very small 

 importance in comparison with its strength, i.e., 

 breadth, depth and bluntness, and it is in respect of 

 this strength present-day breeders assert that the 

 mastiffs of some twenty years ago failed. In the 

 effort to remedy this, the foreface has become 

 shortened, for I cannot believe that we have our 

 present type as the outcome of a sole desire to 

 shorten, merely for the sake of shortening, a long 

 muzzle which was already perfect in other respects. 



