About the king of dogs - Tibetan mastiff. The Tibetan Mastiff belongs to the oldest dog breeds in the world. The first demonstrable mentions about this breed are from year 1100 before Christ. At that time a very big dog of tibetan breed was presented to the Chinese emperor. This dog was trained for the fight against the foreigners. We can read about the bandog dogs of Tibetan mastiff type also in records about Alexandr The Great expeditions (356 - 323 before Christ). These dogs are also at reliers from time of 80 years before Christ. Aristoteles (384-322 before Christ) also alludes to dogs from Tibet. But the best known descriptions of Tibetan mastiffs did the traveller Marko Polo (year 1295). This dog is probably a predecessor of all the bandog and pastoral breeds. The origin of the Tibetan mastiff is derived from the Assyrian bandog and Tibetan dogs, whose predecessor was black Asian wolf. First mentions (1100 before Christ) speak about the real Tibetan mastiff ( I mean appearance) but its name "Tibetan mastiff" arose much more later and Tibetians named there just "dogs". Can anybody imagine when the crossing of the Assyrian bandog with the Tibetan dogs could be realized? I think nobody can answer this question, but probably very long time ago . According to longtime TM breeder - Mrs. Pilat from France the crossing of these two various types of dogs was realized directly in Tibet. Of course these are only probable assumptions, because as people migrated, also their dogs migrated with people. Who knows, maybe the predecessor of Assyrian bandog is the Tibetan mastiff. It can be also on the contrary. But any of these assumptions doesn´t exclude the fact that the Tibetan mastiff is the very old breed. In 1765 the Italien painter Guiseppe Castiglione did a picture in China and based on this picture the republic Taiwan issued a postage stamp with name of "the celestial lion". The Tibetan mastiff - type molosse is in this picture. It is similar rather to the today´s molosses than to most of today´s Tibetan dogs (type do-khyi). It is really wonderful dog with nice brown colour with tan (European FCI doesn´t admit the brown colour, but it is allowed in the US - it is really a paradox). This dog is really stately and imposing type and I would voice a hypothesis that very long time ago there was a breeding aim (on this dog) to create dogs similar to big feline. Or if these could be the known cathedral guards? First time I could see this picture of "the celestial lion" at the special TM exhibition in German Tanenhof. The long time TM breeder - Mr. Richard W. Eichhorn brought it there. It was in the time when the Tibetan Mastiff breeding also started in the Czech republic. I was really deeply impressed by the the appearance of this dog at the picture and I ask a question to myself :"Why don´t we breed such dogs - TM?"