That's good stuff ..  im just learning portuguese  breeds and love the history around all  breeds  It would make since that the sm would be closer related to african dogs  because of proximity  . I was just reading about the alunt   and samaritan dogs    .. how would these dogs have have made it to spain ...  romans....  they would have for sure taken  some  back to that area  you can trace back mabe the samaritan dog is your key   ..just a hunch .. . And just thinking out of the box a little I think the show dogs might be  a more pure genetic sample  working dogs are stronger geneticly because of diversity  if it works breed it only show people prech pure .. with no working ability to me its a time capsule of dna but just my thoughts  now that were on portuguese breeds and you seem very knolegable  I 'believe ' I have conected the fila  . As a direct  decendant  of   get this Rafeiro do Alentejo,..  lol  fila people hate me for sugesting  this  but the dogs mirror each othere  early fila were short coated  rafeiro same bones structure  job and colors markings and temperment and brazil was a portuguse coloney the people still speake it  and found records   where the were shiped to brazil to work on farms .  Were was the first filas found   yep you gussed it . ..  I found this doing research  on cuban blood hounds and following slave trader routes around  the americas I asumed some conection in fila and cuban  bloodhound   both being of portuguese  creation and used by them as slave dogs  any help conecting or seperating these dogs or completely seperating them  would be intresting