Bandogs

[Deleted]

@hardcastle what was it like during the PP Bandog era? Who's still doing Bandog stuff? Did you get Boss because of the trendy Bandog thing?

[Hardcastle]

The trendy bandog thing allowed me to get a bandog pretty easily on my 21st birthday because there were lots around, but the truth is the neapolitan mastiff and neo bandog became my favourite dogs when I was 12 years old. Actually before the 00s bandog trend.

As a kid I started at ebt as my favourite dog (figuring ralph was tough thanks to EBT blood, so logically ebts must be EVEN better than Ralph... eh turns out not really, but I digress), this was while being obsessed with jaguars, wolverines, mandrills and peregrine falcons (and others). Dogs weren't my favourite thing, but EBTs were my favorite dog. Then I found out about "rednose pitbulls" and Tosas, and how they were the toughest dogs of all, so they became my favourites and at the same time dogs started becoming my favourite animal. I actually did a project for school in grade 6 on tosas and how they were "sumo dogs", lol.
So when I was 12 I won a writing competition and my parents bought me this book as a reward-

Looks gross I know, lol, it is 27 years old and has been kicking around in garages during floods and etc.

Anyway, I was so excited to see the cool pics of pitbulls and tosas-





remember, this is 1995 and the internet wasn't even a thing hardly at all then, you couldn't just find pics of pitbulls and tosas, it was like gold to even see these pics.
Then I was blown away seeing the other types of "fighting dogs" (as Dr Carl called them), I'd never seen american bulldogs before ever-


I learned about other cool crossed people were doing-




Saw a dogo for the first time-


I'd seen DDBs before but still was cool to see them-


And I HAD seen a Neo actually at a dog show, fleetingly for a moment, but still was so cool to see all these photos and learn about them-




and I kind of decided then I loved Neos more than anything, because they looked so cool, and then he talked about bandogs and kind of portrayed them as legit fighting dogs. So it was like a perfect storm of coolest looking dog that also is apparently legitimately tough-






So I was just all about neos and bandogs through my teens, I mean when I wasn't focused on babes and smoking bongs and drinking and skateboarding and etc etc. Actually they kind of took a back seat to that stuff tbh, but then when I was 19-21 I revitalised my passion for animals and dogs. And yeah I decided I really really want a neo bandog, and luckily for me, exactly around that time the bandog trend was taking off. Pretty much all the people involved in that wave actually just read the same book I did, or a different Carl Semencic book. He wrote a few. There was a 70s bandog trend that Semencic was kind of personally involved in, and then fans of Semencic made a new bandog movement in the 00s. I was one of those people.

There were multiple forums all going off. Very PP focussed now, no talk of dog fighting obviously, lol. The 70s movement was like 50/50 dog fighting and PP. The 00s movement was like 95% pp, but also about 5% boar catching talk among a small minority of breeders.
The biggest most noteworthy bandog breeder was probably Joe Lucero from California, whose dogs looked pretty awesome, if you were into that sort of thing (and at the time I was)-


He was training his dogs to a pretty high level in PP and they were featuring in movies and stuff. But there were lots of respected lines around the world, I actually struggle to remember all of them. There was some guy in Greece who was highly respected and legit, there was a guy named "DaveUK" from england breeding really nice bandogs, not to be confused with "DanUK" aka Dan Balderson, who was around the same time but more just an epically knowledgeable dog guy. One even I bow down too. Probably the most knowledgeable dog guy I have known, edging out even David Hancock, author of Mastiffs- The big game hunters and countless other books. He IMO is second most knowledgeable dog guy ever, DanUK is first (I'm 3rd btw, lol, sorry but it's the truth). But yeah back to bandog breeders... I think midgard kennels was around back then and they actually are still going pretty strong-
Midgard Mastiffs
Also ofcourse there was the ever-present but contraversial Lee Robinson, and what then he called "Swinford sporting bandogs", later Chimera bandogs, now American Sentinel k9s-
American Sentinel k9s
I kind of got swept up in the furore and kind of believed everyone saying he was bad. I always secretly felt like his dogs look good, frankly more like the real working dogs I was used to (pig dogs) and I felt like they were good but it wasn't "cool" to say they were good or he was good. Everyone hated him. I think he was just abrasive and said "confrontational" things (lesson for you, bolushi).
There were loads, I honestly can't remember them all, or even 10% of them. Then you also have all the weird offshoots like donovan pinschers and serbian defense dogs and etc. It was the "experimental crossing for pp" golden age.

Luckily for me two of the most respected breeders internationally (kind of connected and working together), were Maria Bryant and Katrina Hartwell from outback Australia. Yes ladies, but pretty rugged outback ladies, lol. All the luceros and midgards and danuks and daveuks and Butch Cappels (top PP trainer) and everyone signed off on them being legit and having legit bandogs. I will say they were also one of the rare ones who actually dabbled in catch dog work as well. Katrina in particular had a background in pig-dogging and also catching scrub bulls with dogs. It wasn't the bandogs she was actually breeding that caught the scrub bulls, it was more in an earlier life she caught scrub bulls with pitbulls and pitbullmastiffs. But still.. her current bandogs were catching pigs at that time on the side.

I ended up buying a bandog from Katrina that was sired by a dog bred by Maria, and used by her son as a working security dog. The dad, which I met at 21 with my dad, was pretty hardcore mean to humans and well trained.

And boss was pretty cool. He was genuinely a calm cool dog that could turn it on and go full tunnel-vision killer when necessary and was really good at gauging whether people were sketchy or not, and dogs for that matter. He was an impressive "personal protector" and well bred.

But...
He kind of made me rethink dogs in general. Like I didn't understand why at 52 kgs or so he felt so much more heavy and sluggish than pig dogs I had known which weighed 52 kgs or even 70 kgs. His mind and nerves were very impressive but his body wasn't really. Impressively durable but not impressively athletic or strong or fast compared to the pig dogs I was used to. The pig dogs I took for granted and overlooked since I was a little kid.

I slowly started to realise that "ralph" and other mongrel pig dogs I knew were actually the peak all along. The more I learned about the best dogs in the world, the more I realised the dogs right under my nose were the best you can get. So often all the traits I took for granted were discussed as being so "rare" and hard to capture in a breeding program and dogs blowing peoples minds as exceptional were doing so with feats and traits that were pretty average and normal in pig dogs.
The bandog breeders that lasted actually all seemed to work it out, and dipped their toes into catchdog work with their dogs. Lee Robinson with his Sentinel K9s, Manson Family Bandogs, two eagles bandogs (the marriage of steel trap texas bulldogs with Cillier's neos from South Africa- also tested on hogs).
Getting a dog to bite a sleeve is all fun and games (I didn't even mention I actually did this stuff with boss- and he was by far the best in the club with no training), it's not really legit work compared to hunting hogs. The latter refines a far higher standard of dog.

[Deleted]

Nov 14, 2022 10:25:39 GMT Hardcastle said:

The trendy bandog thing allowed me to get a bandog pretty easily on my 21st birthday because there were lots around, but the truth is the neapolitan mastiff and neo bandog became my favourite dogs when I was 12 years old. Actually before the 00s bandog trend.

As a kid I started at ebt as my favourite dog (figuring ralph was tough thanks to EBT blood, so logically ebts must be EVEN better than Ralph... eh turns out not really, but I digress), this was while being obsessed with jaguars, wolverines, mandrills and peregrine falcons (and others). Dogs weren't my favourite thing, but EBTs were my favorite dog. Then I found out about "rednose pitbulls" and Tosas, and how they were the toughest dogs of all, so they became my favourites and at the same time dogs started becoming my favourite animal. I actually did a project for school in grade 6 on tosas and how they were "sumo dogs", lol.
So when I was 12 I won a writing competition and my parents bought me this book as a reward-

Looks gross I know, lol, it is 27 years old and has been kicking around in garages during floods and etc.

Anyway, I was so excited to see the cool pics of pitbulls and tosas-





remember, this is 1995 and the internet wasn't even a thing hardly at all then, you couldn't just find pics of pitbulls and tosas, it was like gold to even see these pics.
Then I was blown away seeing the other types of "fighting dogs" (as Dr Carl called them), I'd never seen american bulldogs before ever-


I learned about other cool crossed people were doing-




Saw a dogo for the first time-


I'd seen DDBs before but still was cool to see them-


And I HAD seen a Neo actually at a dog show, fleetingly for a moment, but still was so cool to see all these photos and learn about them-




and I kind of decided then I loved Neos more than anything, because they looked so cool, and then he talked about bandogs and kind of portrayed them as legit fighting dogs. So it was like a perfect storm of coolest looking dog that also is apparently legitimately tough-






So I was just all about neos and bandogs through my teens, I mean when I wasn't focused on babes and smoking bongs and drinking and skateboarding and etc etc. Actually they kind of took a back seat to that stuff tbh, but then when I was 19-21 I revitalised my passion for animals and dogs. And yeah I decided I really really want a neo bandog, and luckily for me, exactly around that time the bandog trend was taking off. Pretty much all the people involved in that wave actually just read the same book I did, or a different Carl Semencic book. He wrote a few. There was a 70s bandog trend that Semencic was kind of personally involved in, and then fans of Semencic made a new bandog movement in the 00s. I was one of those people.

There were multiple forums all going off. Very PP focussed now, no talk of dog fighting obviously, lol. The 70s movement was like 50/50 dog fighting and PP. The 00s movement was like 95% pp, but also about 5% boar catching talk among a small minority of breeders.
The biggest most noteworthy bandog breeder was probably Joe Lucero from California, whose dogs looked pretty awesome, if you were into that sort of thing (and at the time I was)-


He was training his dogs to a pretty high level in PP and they were featuring in movies and stuff. But there were lots of respected lines around the world, I actually struggle to remember all of them. There was some guy in Greece who was highly respected and legit, there was a guy named "DaveUK" from england breeding really nice bandogs, not to be confused with "DanUK" aka Dan Balderson, who was around the same time but more just an epically knowledgeable dog guy. One even I bow down too. Probably the most knowledgeable dog guy I have known, edging out even David Hancock, author of Mastiffs- The big game hunters and countless other books. He IMO is second most knowledgeable dog guy ever, DanUK is first (I'm 3rd btw, lol, sorry but it's the truth). But yeah back to bandog breeders... I think midgard kennels was around back then and they actually are still going pretty strong-
Midgard Mastiffs
Also ofcourse there was the ever-present but contraversial Lee Robinson, and what then he called "Swinford sporting bandogs", later Chimera bandogs, now American Sentinel k9s-
American Sentinel k9s
I kind of got swept up in the furore and kind of believed everyone saying he was bad. I always secretly felt like his dogs look good, frankly more like the real working dogs I was used to (pig dogs) and I felt like they were good but it wasn't "cool" to say they were good or he was good. Everyone hated him. I think he was just abrasive and said "confrontational" things (lesson for you, bolushi).
There were loads, I honestly can't remember them all, or even 10% of them. Then you also have all the weird offshoots like donovan pinschers and serbian defense dogs and etc. It was the "experimental crossing for pp" golden age.

Luckily for me two of the most respected breeders internationally (kind of connected and working together), were Maria Bryant and Katrina Hartwell from outback Australia. Yes ladies, but pretty rugged outback ladies, lol. All the luceros and midgards and danuks and daveuks and Butch Cappels (top PP trainer) and everyone signed off on them being legit and having legit bandogs. I will say they were also one of the rare ones who actually dabbled in catch dog work as well. Katrina in particular had a background in pig-dogging and also catching scrub bulls with dogs. It wasn't the bandogs she was actually breeding that caught the scrub bulls, it was more in an earlier life she caught scrub bulls with pitbulls and pitbullmastiffs. But still.. her current bandogs were catching pigs at that time on the side.

I ended up buying a bandog from Katrina that was sired by a dog bred by Maria, and used by her son as a working security dog. The dad, which I met at 21 with my dad, was pretty hardcore mean to humans and well trained.

And boss was pretty cool. He was genuinely a calm cool dog that could turn it on and go full tunnel-vision killer when necessary and was really good at gauging whether people were sketchy or not, and dogs for that matter. He was an impressive "personal protector" and well bred.

But...
He kind of made me rethink dogs in general. Like I didn't understand why at 52 kgs or so he felt so much more heavy and sluggish than pig dogs I had known which weighed 52 kgs or even 70 kgs. His mind and nerves were very impressive but his body wasn't really. Impressively durable but not impressively athletic or strong or fast compared to the pig dogs I was used to. The pig dogs I took for granted and overlooked since I was a little kid.

I slowly started to realise that "ralph" and other mongrel pig dogs I knew were actually the peak all along. The more I learned about the best dogs in the world, the more I realised the dogs right under my nose were the best you can get. So often all the traits I took for granted were discussed as being so "rare" and hard to capture in a breeding program and dogs blowing peoples minds as exceptional were doing so with feats and traits that were pretty average and normal in pig dogs.
The bandog breeders that lasted actually all seemed to work it out, and dipped their toes into catchdog work with their dogs. Lee Robinson with his Sentinel K9s, Manson Family Bandogs, two eagles bandogs (the marriage of steel trap texas bulldogs with Cillier's neos from South Africa- also tested on hogs).
Getting a dog to bite a sleeve is all fun and games (I didn't even mention I actually did this stuff with boss- and he was by far the best in the club with no training), it's not really legit work compared to hunting hogs. The latter refines a far higher standard of dog.

When you changed from bandogs to pig dogs, did you ever think about crossing Boss to a sighthound or getting one of those big lanky dogs like BWHs and OHs so that you had a bandog-ish thingy that had a good body? Also how legit really were the Bandogs? How'd they do vs Tosas, APBTs and pig dogs? If such matches were ever arranged?

[Hardcastle]

Semencic indicated that bandog vs apbt was arranged, and the bandogs would often start out winning but ultimately falter and fail. Semencic was HARD apbt fan, maybe for very good reason, but it's unmistakable the whole point of his books was pointing about apbts were the best. I'm not mad about it, he was the first person I read who made it clear apbts could beat absolutely everything close to their weight (including wolverines). I still basically subscribe to that idea. I don't think that assertion has been disproven, not for me. But yeah semencic is the guy who first injected that idea into my brain.

I don't think "pig dog vs apbt" was arranged. When people fought pig dogs there were no apbts. Apbts came to australia weirdly late. The golden age of pig dogs had already passed and dog fighting was already considered a shitty thing to do. It's funny how in the 80s no one knew it was even unethical. That whole idea actually came to australia WITH apbts. Like apbts came over, and then we learned about dog fighting and then we learned that dog fighting was unethical. Before that it was just a casual thing.

[Hardcastle]

I never thought about crossing boss to a sighthound. It took a while for me to work out my thoughts after boss. While I had boss I just felt a subtle pang that I wish he was faster and more athletic, but I didn't really speak it out loud or even think about it. I actually wanted to cross him to another bandog which is why I got that DDB x apbt female. He actually mated with her 3 times but never had puppies, I assumed it was her but then later bones impregnated her. It was Boss, he was shooting blanks. She sucked anyway, she shouldn't have bred with anything. Neither should have bones. And frankly neither should have boss. I mean his pups might have been ok bandogs, but by pig dog standards there's no way he would breed. That's why pig dogs are good, the breeding standards are just way more cutthroat. Way way more cutthroat than all the pp dogs and etc I knew.
Forgetting about fighting or whatever my current female BA is like a 98 overall, vs boss being a 68 and bones being a 43 and bonnie (ddb x) being a 35. Huge difference. Ralph was more like an 89. He was 99 or 100 in hardness but overall, all the qualities... Winnie is next level the best dog I have had. I have my hands on a real serious elite level pig dog and it's quite obvious and eye opening. She definitely SHOULD breed. Lots of real hunters WISH they had her qualities, when you combine all of them. Lots of them are actually working with dogs blatantly inferior in countless ways and that's their best main dog.
Of all my cousins real serious working pig dogs I have known, which is about 30, there is 1 male liver bull arab that was arguably better, and then maybe this bullstag he is raving about now which is equal, possibly. He had lots of good dogs but I wouldn't put them up that high and he wouldn't either.
Again this isn't "fighting ability" I am talking about. It factors in slightly as hardness and like reliable holding under pressure, but that's not even a big deal. Pretty common. The other boar hunting dog qualities are more difficult and rarer, and my current dog is extremely good and I feel a responsibility to make sure she breeds.
I don't think any other dogs I had should have bred. Maybe ralph, and he did BTW, he made sure of it with or without our permission, lol.

[Deleted]

Nov 14, 2022 18:27:24 GMT Hardcastle said:

I never thought about crossing boss to a sighthound. It took a while for me to work out my thoughts after boss. While I had boss I just felt a subtle pang that I wish he was faster and more athletic, but I didn't really speak it out loud or even think about it. I actually wanted to cross him to another bandog which is why I got that DDB x apbt female. He actually mated with her 3 times but never had puppies, I assumed it was her but then later bones impregnated her. It was Boss, he was shooting blanks. She sucked anyway, she shouldn't have bred with anything. Neither should have bones. And frankly neither should have boss. I mean his pups might have been ok bandogs, but by pig dog standards there's no way he would breed. That's why pig dogs are good, the breeding standards are just way more cutthroat. Way way more cutthroat than all the pp dogs and etc I knew.
Forgetting about fighting or whatever my current female BA is like a 98 overall, vs boss being a 68 and bones being a 43 and bonnie (ddb x) being a 35. Huge difference. Ralph was more like an 89. He was 99 or 100 in hardness but overall, all the qualities... Winnie is next level the best dog I have had. I have my hands on a real serious elite level pig dog and it's quite obvious and eye opening. She definitely SHOULD breed. Lots of real hunters WISH they had her qualities, when you combine all of them. Lots of them are actually working with dogs blatantly inferior in countless ways and that's their best main dog.
Of all my cousins real serious working pig dogs I have known, which is about 30, there is 1 male liver bull arab that was arguably better, and then maybe this bullstag he is raving about now which is equal, possibly. He had lots of good dogs but I wouldn't put them up that high and he wouldn't either.
Again this isn't "fighting ability" I am talking about. It factors in slightly as hardness and like reliable holding under pressure, but that's not even a big deal. Pretty common. The other boar hunting dog qualities are more difficult and rarer, and my current dog is extremely good and I feel a responsibility to make sure she breeds.
I don't think any other dogs I had should have bred. Maybe ralph, and he did BTW, he made sure of it with or without our permission, lol.

Didn't you say some of his littermates were working boardogs on carnivora? carnivora.net/florida-panther-v-neapolitan-mastiff-t8176.html
Also who's SBT was that in some of those photos? Yours?
Do you think there's still some dogs around with Ralph ancestry?

[Hardcastle]

Nov 15, 2022 2:24:30 GMT Bolushi said:

Nov 14, 2022 18:27:24 GMT Hardcastle said:

I never thought about crossing boss to a sighthound. It took a while for me to work out my thoughts after boss. While I had boss I just felt a subtle pang that I wish he was faster and more athletic, but I didn't really speak it out loud or even think about it. I actually wanted to cross him to another bandog which is why I got that DDB x apbt female. He actually mated with her 3 times but never had puppies, I assumed it was her but then later bones impregnated her. It was Boss, he was shooting blanks. She sucked anyway, she shouldn't have bred with anything. Neither should have bones. And frankly neither should have boss. I mean his pups might have been ok bandogs, but by pig dog standards there's no way he would breed. That's why pig dogs are good, the breeding standards are just way more cutthroat. Way way more cutthroat than all the pp dogs and etc I knew.
Forgetting about fighting or whatever my current female BA is like a 98 overall, vs boss being a 68 and bones being a 43 and bonnie (ddb x) being a 35. Huge difference. Ralph was more like an 89. He was 99 or 100 in hardness but overall, all the qualities... Winnie is next level the best dog I have had. I have my hands on a real serious elite level pig dog and it's quite obvious and eye opening. She definitely SHOULD breed. Lots of real hunters WISH they had her qualities, when you combine all of them. Lots of them are actually working with dogs blatantly inferior in countless ways and that's their best main dog.
Of all my cousins real serious working pig dogs I have known, which is about 30, there is 1 male liver bull arab that was arguably better, and then maybe this bullstag he is raving about now which is equal, possibly. He had lots of good dogs but I wouldn't put them up that high and he wouldn't either.
Again this isn't "fighting ability" I am talking about. It factors in slightly as hardness and like reliable holding under pressure, but that's not even a big deal. Pretty common. The other boar hunting dog qualities are more difficult and rarer, and my current dog is extremely good and I feel a responsibility to make sure she breeds.
I don't think any other dogs I had should have bred. Maybe ralph, and he did BTW, he made sure of it with or without our permission, lol.

Didn't you say some of his littermates were working boardogs on carnivora? carnivora.net/florida-panther-v-neapolitan-mastiff-t8176.html
Also who's SBT was that in some of those photos? Yours?
Do you think there's still some dogs around with Ralph ancestry?

That was my mother's sbt as a puppy, they went on to fight when it matured. And yes some of bosses littermates did catch pigs, but there are levels, limitations on how good they could have been.

Ralph bred with dogs all over town, it's impossible to know how many. A few times we saw puppies that looked like him. One case was fully confirmed, the next door neighbour had an ebt X pig doggy female named angel which had a litter from him. It was just a white leggy ebt but the pups were all tuxedo and hairy. They kept a female named Cindy and she was a total asshole like Ralph, fighting and biting people, lol.