The curious differences b/t Port. and Span. LGDs

Study shown here: http://sloughi.tripod.com/preserving/SloughiAidiPortuguesedogsPires2.html

In recent genetic sequencing, the LGDs of Portugal (EMD, Alentejo mastiff, Castro Laboreiro dog and Transmontano Mastiff) and the Spanish Mastiff, were found to be very different, and the SM actually being closer related to the North African dogs as well as the Portuguese hunting and herding breeds.

This is very puzzling to say the least and has me scratching my head a lot. There goes the idea that rural workers/stockmen are only interested in looking for function in a working dog and aren't concerned about political boundaries... at least in this case.

I personally spoke to Carla Cruz about this as she is credited having involvement in the study by providing the DNA samples, including those of the SMs.... And the SMs that she sampled were working bred individuals (non show stock) found in the province of Leon in the northwest of Spain - an area which borders on Portugal in some areas to the south. Only one dog sequenced was a show-bred SM - the AEPME dogs - which is yet again a very different animal, but I'll get into that later...What she told me:

we followed FAO's criteria for breed - population of dogs ressembling each other and recognized by the local population as belonging to breed X. Then, for those animals, we also sampled those least related to each other, to maximize genetic variability

And apparently, someone in Spain on another forum, had sequenced all working line SMs from the provinces of León, Zamora, Palencia, Ávila, Salamanca y Cáceres and got the same results in regards to SM sequencing from the Pires study.

I'm interested, what are your opinions or theories that may explain this?

My mistake, Leon doesn't border on Portugal but is quite close to the Tras-os-Montes region where the Transmontano comes from. That same region was also historically part of the Kingdom of Leon.

I've seen many pics of old black n white, as well as modern day photos of SMs that are clearly unrelated to the newly created overglorified saint/mastiff/fila/neo mix that is the AEPME Mastin Español, that can - in looks and coloration - easily pass for Rafeiros, Transmontanos or even smooth coat Estrelas. It goes to show that appearance can be deceiving when it comes to dog breeds or landraces... the Turkish and Central Asian LGDs maybe very distantly related to those of Iberia, or the Balkans..

The name Carla Molinari doesn't sound familiar to me. Carla Cruz is a Portuguese cynologist.

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 

I'm doing further investigation into this, to perhaps shed more onto this mystery. What many of you possibly don't already realize is that going back to the middle ages, Portugal didn't start off as its own nation, rather as a kingdom....same as with Castile and Aragon. Up until around 1680 when it finally gained its independence, the entire Iberian Peninsula was known as "Spain". Back then though, "Spain" as a nation didn't yet exist and was coined more along the lines of "Scandinavia" and "The Balkans".. Though early literature has shown that the Portuguese had referred to themselves as "Spaniards" just as Canadians today refer to themselves as North Americans. I'm making a half-educated guess here... it appears that the LGDs of Portugal have their origin in the northwestern part of the peninsula, maybe north of the Douro/Duero river, which is where "Portugal" started. The Moorish invasion never reached this area. As the Christian (Roman Catholic) Kingdom of Portugal expanded southwards, LGDs that were associated with the Islamic Moorish conquest were culled to the point being virtually exterminated in what is now Portugal (again this is an educated guess/theory of mine). But on the Spanish side the extensive trashumancia movement (started around 1300s, after the Moors were driven out) from the south to the northern parts of the country, allowed for more crossbreeding opportunities. The Trashumancia in Portugal has been miniscule compared to that of Spain, BTW. That would be how how three distinct types of LGDs (I say three because the the Rafeiro and the Estrela are genetically the same pretty much) managed to evolved there. Prior to the Islamic invasion I believe that at some point the LGDs of what is now Portugal and Spain, where of the same basic root stock and landrace, mutually crossbreeding to each other...but post Christian succession the LGDs on the Spanish side (due to the trashumancia movements as I mentioned above) they have assimilated with those left by the moors, considerably altering their DNA but apparently having little impact on them in terms of size, coloration and outward appearance. After all, the German Shepherd is genetically speaking quite different from the Malinois and the other Belgian shepherd dog breeds, but it is probable that they still have shared common ancestry like the Spanish and Portuguese LGDs. And after Portugal's independence, I suppose that political boundaries were a factor in the Portuguese not wanting to outcross their LGD stock with those of their Spanish neighbor and vice versa. After all, there was some beef between the two countries. :p

Quite the contrary, actually. The show lines of Spanish mastiff are themselves a recent creation (starting in the later decades of the 20th century) as a result of crosses to English Mastiff, St. Bernard (smooth coat), Neapolitan mastiff, Fila brasileiro and perhaps some of the other giant breeds in the mix. This is something that is very little known and has been kept secrete from the general public. The blood of the aboriginal SM (LGD landrace that still exists in Spain but its numbers are falling) flows in its veins but it is in many respects only an imitation/wannabe of its original namesake... I do not consider them the same dog at all. Anyone who claims the show type represents the "original" "pure" stock are just repeating a BIG lie!! Even the now much coveted Abelgas line of SM shows evidence of ancestry from show lineages, though appears to have been outcrossed back to aboriginal type mastines making them lighter framed, leggier, more agile, healthier, less skin and more working/guarding instinct than many straight show-line SMs. You are right about one thing, that the show-bred SM has also resulted from intensive line breeding and inbreeding to homogenize breed type and exaggerate desired traits. Hence why the show type SM is riddled with so many problems and such short life span.

 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 agree. Thought I would mention that I myself am loathed by a handful of "Spanish Mastiff" fanatics for suggesting that their breed is a modern cocktail breed and for openly showing proof of how drastically the breed has been altered from its former self in the past 3-4 decades.

Thanks you both  its been hard sugesting such things to the rong people  who preach show history like the bible   its blasphemy it most circles  I do agree the present fila is a modern show version   as a simble of national pride and example of a mastiff this story like so many will never be told or recorded    but maybe used  in my breedings if I can find a working ralph.     very nice conversation