Himalaya in Hindsight
Since I first owned Lhasa Apsos in 1979, I have been thoroughly absorbed with the Tibetan breeds, and thirst for knowledge about each and every one of them. I followed Tibetan Mastiffs with interest from the 1980s, the breed having arrived in Britain in 1982 after a period of absence.
In 1991, I went to a dog show in Germany, ostensibly to visit the KTR Klub show (Internationale Klub für Tibetische Hunderassen, which encompasses all the Tibetan breeds), but I also visited an international show in the same city. There I fell in love with a Tibetan Mastiff sitting on the floor, away from ringside. Soon enough, a little group gathered round this splendid dog, and it turned out that the person with whom I got into deep conversation was Jay Singh. Although I didn’t know it at the time, Jay was, and still is, president of the Nepal Kennel Club; a breeder of Tibetan Mastiffs in his home country, he exported the first Tibetan Mastiff to Germany, Tu Bo.
In my quest for information about the Tibetan breeds, I had travelled several times to Dharamsala in northern India; it is here that His Holiness the Dalai Lama holds his Tibetan government in exile. Although the altitude is fairly high (between 1,250 to 1,650 meters, or 4,100 to 5,400 feet), I had only ever seen one Tibetan Mastiff there, a gold one coming down from higher land with a herd of goats. The dog was not particularly large, and unfortunately I could not get my hands on it to feel bone structure, as the herdsman was nowhere in sight. In the Himalaya it is seriously unwise to go over a working dog unless one is certain that temperament is sound. The breed is used as a guarding and livestock dog, so although it may have the best temperament in the world when with its owner, it will understandably guard its flock with gusto!
A view of the Himalayas from Dharamsala in northern India.
Kathmandu Valley skyline. Tibetan Mastiffs who live here are often kept in cramped quarters.
In Dharamsala I learned that were many more Tibetans living in Nepal, and a number of them had dogs, so by 1989 and 1990 I had taken myself off to Nepal to explore further. Jay was good enough to show me all the Tibetan Mastiffs he knew of at that time in Kathmandu. I remember visiting a large black Tibetan Mastiff that Jay considered the best of them all. There was quite a story to it, as he had lived in a monastery but had been stolen and ended up by some circuitous route at the house we were visiting. We greeted the dog, and Jay went inside while I talked to the dog in the garden. After leaving, Jay told me that he had watched out of the window and saw me fondling the dog; he realized I was going to be all right, as we had struck up a rapport, but this was a notoriously vicious animal! This was an example to me that if a Tibetan Mastiff’s owner has accepted someone, and if in turn that person has no fear of dogs, good relations can be struck.
Most of the Tibetan Mastiffs I saw in the Kathmandu Valley, however, were kept chained as guard dogs, and always by wealthy folk; poorer people in city areas just cannot manage their upkeep. In general the large houses had double gates, behind which was a long pole spanning the width of the drive. To this the Tibetan Mastiff was attached on a long, movable chain so that he or she could run from side to side, barking and guarding. It was awful to see, but that’s the way things are in the cities of Nepal. Dogs chained in this way could not be touched at all.
Tibetan Mastiff in southern Tibet.
An exception was the home of Raji Rana, a Tibetan Mastiff breeder who has exported dogs to the West, so her lines are certainly behind some of the dogs we know today. Her dogs were kenneled with very large runs, but unfortunately I was not allowed to meet any of them to assess their construction. I seem to recall that most, if not all, were blue/gray and tan. Discretely, Jay explained to me that they should not have white toenails, this should not be tolerated, nor should they have more than a very small white “star” on the chest; too much white was a problem in certain breeding lines. I was learning fast!
Clear in my mind is the fact there had been a great deal of turmoil in the Tibetan Mastiff Club of Great Britain about the color of Tibetan Mastiffs. Around that time certain exhibitors were saying that gold Tibetan Mastiffs were not purebred. I had discussed this with many Tibetans in Dharamsala, and with Nepalis, too, and as a result of this stood by my own firm-held views that there was absolutely no truth in this. Tibet is such a vast landscape with very few roads, so it was perfectly reasonable that color in the breed was largely a matter of region. I had seen a gold Tibetan Mastiff in Dharamsala and was later to see them in Tibet, too, though admittedly the majority I have seen on my travels in the Himalaya have been black and tan. I do not plan to discuss color, but suffice it to say I have never seen a sable or brindle here in the Himalaya, where I now live.
Time moved on, and I came to Nepal on an annual basis. By 2000 I had plucked up courage to travel into Tibet. I was dreading going because of the devastation I knew had been caused by the Chinese, but I had to see Tibet with my own eyes. The smaller Tibetan breeds were few and far between, but Tibetan Mastiffs were well in evidence. Tashilhumpo Monastery – founded in 1447 by the first Dalai Lama, near Shigatse, the second largest city in Tibet – was full of gold-colored dogs; they were mainly Tibetan Mastiffs of a degenerate type, but closer in construction to the Tibetan Mastiff than to the finer Bhutia sheepdog. I imagine that smaller street dogs had been allowed to mingle with the Mastiffs, which, I suspect, in former years had been significantly more typical.
Two Tibetan Mastiffs in a monastery in Boudhanath, Nepal. The dog at rear is from China, the one in foreground from Belgium.
On the mountain passes it was wonderful to see Tibetan Mastiffs following or walking alongside their nomad owners. And I was thrilled to actually meet up with a group of them. As I had experienced before, their temperament was perfectly good when introduced to me by their owners. I came across no exceptions to this rule. Something that impressed me greatly was the thickness of their pads; it was a wonderful feeling to be able to hold a Tibetan Mastiff’s foot and imagine the many, many miles of difficult terrain over which it had walked. That memory will remain with me forever.
But back again to Nepal. On one occasion, Jay Singh had been up into the high mountains in the north of Nepal with a German film crew and had seen Tibetan Mastiffs working livestock. I have been into Mustang, but saw no dogs I could have called true Tibetan Mastiffs. I have heard, however, on good authority, that there are many in Dolpo, and maybe also higher up in Upper Mustang.
Resting after a long walk into town. Take note of the thick pads.
There are still Tibetan Mastiffs in the monasteries in Nepal. These are not chained and are generally very well looked after. The largest Buddhist monastery in Boudhanath, just outside Kathmandu, used to have two Tibetan Mastiffs with three monks whose duty was specifically to look after and exercise them. One of them had been imported from Belgium and the other from China, the latter a relation I believe of another youngster at Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu. All temperaments were absolutely fantastic and all, incidentally, were black and tan. The very sad thing, though, is that the young Chinese import in Boudhanath tragically fell off the roof and died. It may be worth noting here that the Chinese dogs had significantly stronger tan-colored markings, something I have also noticed when judging.
Monks at Tashilhumpo Monastery in Tibet.
The growing interest in the Tibetan Mastiff in China and Tibet is having mixed effects. My friend Dr. Gaby Miethaner, who travelled through the region in the autumn of 2009, saw Tibetan Mastiffs, generally up to about eight months of age, for sale in the street markets of Lhasa. Some appear to have been good specimens, others far from good. The prices they were asking ranged from 500 to 1,000 Euros, which is enormously good money in Tibet and China. She also managed to get hold of a first edition (2006) of a Chinese book, written in English, called China’s Tibetan Mastiff. She found it horrifying how they try to break the dog by not feeding and ignoring; this is done to develop an aggressive animal and to convey the message that a Tibetan Mastiff is “strong and fearless.” She feels it likely that the Chinese are now raising and selling the Tibetan Mastiff in this way in many parts of China.
