I had a potential tenant in this morning, and he seemed generally okay. But here’s the hitch – he has a bull mastiff. Now, I don’t know anything much about dogs, and still less about bull mastiffs, beyond what Wikipedia tells me. So does anybody here have any personal experience with these dogs?
This is a rental situation, and there will be small kids living downstairs. I don’t want to take an unreasonable chance here, but I don’t want to turn aside a possible tenant for no good reason.
And no, I haven’t met the dog. All I’ve seen is his picture.
My neighbors had one and he was a dear. He was an indoor dog (!) and was outside only with the neighbors, and on a leash. He never barked, was very friendly to people and other dogs.
But the people who bought the house after the dog-owners moved had to repaint every room. They said the walls were covered with drool. Mastiffs drool a lot, and when they shake their heads the drool flies all over.
Gigantic, slobbery but usually very calm. People that I know that have owned them say they’re great with kids. The only concern is that with small kids they might get hurt accidentely just because of the size of a full grown mastiff.
Is it possible to ask to meet the dog, or would that be a violation of your state’s rental laws?
I don’t think that a series of anecdotes from the internet about how other Bull Mastiffs have acted are going to matter nearly as much as how this particular one acts. See if you can get a chance to view how both the dog and the owner interact with others, and especially strangers.
The ones I’ve known are lovable giants. They are fairly calm, but drooly, and good with kids. They can be intimidating because of their size, but they are really very good and friendly dogs.
But like the posters above said, you need to see how THIS dog behaves. THat’s what’s going to matter.
Much of what I know about Bullmastiffs comes from Jane and Michael Stern’s book Dog Eat Dog: A Very Human Book about Dogs and Dog Shows, in which they spend a year on the dog-show circuit with a Bullmastiff show dog and its breeder. They own Bullmastiffs and are just nutty about the breed, but freely acknowledge the drooling issue in extremely graphic terms. Drool on the ceiling. Slobber where you think slobber couldn’t get.
Your library may have it.
ETA: I would have no preconceived reservations about the dog’s behavior. It’s known as a gentle, friendly breed. If the dog is not a barker and you can tolerate the drool, don’t let the word “bull” freak you out.
A friend of mine has two bullmastiff bitches in their apartment. She has no problems whatsoever with them. They are very calm dogs, preferring to lounge around on or around various pieces of furniture. In addition to showing the dogs (one is a champion in I think 4 or 5 different countries so far), they do tracking, obedience training and swimming, so from these examples, at least, I’d say they are versatile and workable dogs. The drool is a bit of a problem. I usually change into more grungy clothes when I visit them.
As a general rule, I don’t think any dog is “too big for apartment life”; living in Finland, a lot of dogs live in apartments and manage to have a perfectly satisfying quality of life. This, of course, depends on the owners making sure that the dogs get sufficient daily exercise. In a dog the size of a bullmastiff I’d be more worried about going up and down stairs, especially if the dog is young (bone plates still developing) or old (possible problems with hips or elbows).
Probably the biggest problem would be when the floor caves in under the mastiff’s weight as it flops to the floor and therefore buries the small children in the room below under the rubble.
(Why can’t big dogs just LAY down? It’s like a skyscraper falling.)
The floor? Ha! The ones I know just lay down on top of YOU. If you are sitting anywhere they climb up on your lap and bury you in a big furry, drooly ball. My mother-in-law’s dog sprawls out over whoever is on the couch at that particular moment.
Grungy clothes are very necessary for their house.
I don’t think an apartment has much to do with their lives. They are low energy dogs and just lounge around. Most people have a friend or relative like that although I hope they drool less. They are almost completely non-aggressive as well and their life-span tends to be fairly short. There shouldn’t be a worry about aggression. A kitten could do more damage.
Eh. It’s not the size of the dog and the living space that matters, it’s the individual dog’s energy level and the efforts the owner makes to provide appropriate exercise and stimulation. A bullmastiff is a far more suitable low-energy apartment dog than many smaller breeds, such as border collies or many small terriers.
Besides, they’re not really that enormous. People hear the mastiff part and picture these guys, the classic mastiff which weighs in upwards of 200 lbs. Bullmastiffs are a little more manageable, size-wise.
They’re really very nice dogs. Drooly, but nice. You should meet this one first, though, and see how they interact with him. If it’s a total maniac and the owners make no effort to exercise him or keep him mentally stimulated, any dog can do a lot of damage to an apartment. I’m no landlord, but I am a big dog geek, and I would be far less concerned about the breed of the dog than I would be about the people being good, responsible dog owners in general. As in more or less every conversation about dog behavior, it’s rarely the dog you’ll need to worry about so much as the owners.
Big, sweet, drooly dogs. Most are great with children as well. Unless your area has a prohibition on certain breeds :rolleyes:, then you ought to be just fine. Of course ALL dogs are different, and you could get the one bad apple in the bunch. But every one that I have ever met has been a big mooshy-faced, baby. The classic English mastiff is on our short list for our next dog.
I have an Old English Mastiff and yes we live in an apartment. Most people are surprised that she is such a sweet and loving dog, for being so big. She does think her job is to hold down the couch… so it does not run away. Everyone at our apartment building loves her and everyone knows her name, even if they don’t know us. She does drool a bit, but not as much as most. Those magic erasers are great for getting slobber off the walls
I would meet the dog if you are feeling wary about it, but they really think they are 20lb lapdogs and are the sweetest thing. And I think those that live around us, feel a bit safer knowing she is here.
I know there is a Doperette here who has an American Mastiff ( just a less drooly version) and referred to them as an interactive carpet. ( Bibliocat? I think it is a Chicago area doperette.)
My experience has been that mastiffs are great with kids and gentle giants. Any dog, no matter the size and breeding, can be the opposite of what the norm is for the breed, so it is best to see the poochie in action and possibly get letters of recommendation from family, friends and a vet. ( shots up to date and all that would be critical.)
Personally, I’d take a mastiff as a neighbor than a chihuahua or other yippy barky dog.
Putting up with drool and enormous piles of crap, too me, is worth it, for the quietness of breed.
If you do take them in as renters, maybe a welcoming gift of drool rags would be appropriate.
If you want a good and sometimes amusing read on dog breeds, I recommend: [The Good, The Bad and the Furry. . Some breed purists get a bee up their nose about how their little snookums breed is much maligned in this book, but overall, as a dog enthusiast, I think it gives an excellent review of the standard pros and cons of all the major (popular) breeds.
Thanks, all. The drool question is one that had frankly never entered my mind (and now that it’s entered, it won’t leave). The suggestion to actually meet the dog in question is a good one that I’ll follow forthwith. I’ll be wearing old clothes anyway.
The bull mastiffs I know are gigantic and lazy. There are three of 'em in one house, and when you walk around you wander among puddles of sentient wrinkles.
These are not vicious dogs, but when they bark they are intimidating. Mostly they just sleep. Oh yeah, and they drool. They drool in copious amounts.
I think they are one of the best breeds of dog, temperament wise. Very sweet and loveable.
ETA: LOL @ ‘‘interactive carpet’’… that is perfect.
I’ve met just one Bull Mastiff. He was a full-grown male with his sack intact, named Bozo – beautiful in that virile, muscular way a lot of big dogs are beautiful, utterly useless for any practical purpose, and a real pleasure to be acquainted with.
Bozo-boy was a big ol’ spud – dumber than a bag of baseballs, but friendly and enthusiastic, sort of dopey, and just generally a lot of fun to have around. I remember that there was a real little kid on the premises at one point, like two years old or less, crawling around all over Bozo’s tawny hummock of a body and pulling his ears and doing all that annoying crap little kids do to dogs, and Bozo just laid around taking it with a big loopy dog-grin on his big loopy dog-mugg.
Bull breeds in general tend to be damned fine dogs, and yes, that includes pitsters and AmStaffs; those who demonize them due to their breed do a disservice to the breed, to themselves, and to all caninity.
