Breed History
The Tibetan Mastiff is perhaps the most ancient of the large dog breeds, and most modern large breeds are believed to have descended from this dog....
The bones of ancient Tibetan Mastiffs dating to 1100 BC have been found in China, and it is believed that at some point during this period the Tibetan Mastiff split into two groups. The dogs who moved west out of the Himalayas became the blueprint for countless other large breeds, including the Mastiff; those who remained in the Himalayan plateaus and mountains continued the bloodlines of the original mastiff, and were used by nomadic tribes as guard dogs. Tibetan Mastiffs guarded campsites, villages and monasteries. During the day, the dogs were chained to whatever they were guarding, while at night the dogs were allowed to roam free and hunt. Tibets forbidden landscape kept the Tibetan Mastiff concealed from the world for many centuries, but beginning in the 19th century the Western world finally got its first glimpse of these noble beasts. In 1847, the Viceroy of India sent a Tibetan Mastiff named Siring to Queen Victoria. More dogs would be sent out of Tibet in coming years, but the breeds numbers outside of Tibet remained fairly nonexistent. The impetus for spreading the Tibetan Mastiff around the world really occurred in the 1950s with the Chinese invasion of Tibet. Fearing for the dogs survival, fanciers sent several specimens around the world, including a pair sent by the Dalai Lama to President Eisenhower. The Tibetan Mastiff finally caught on with American breeders during the late 1960s, and in 1974 the American Tibetan Mastiff Association was formed. The Tibetan Mastiff was accepted into the American Kennel Clubs Working Group in 2006, and today it is occasionally seen in American homes as a devoted companion and guardian. In its native Tibet, the breed still performs the same functions it has for thousands of years.