Gait

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THE STANDARD: Gait

The Standard Says:

Gait: The Neapolitan Mastiff's movement is not flashy, but rather slow and lumbering. Normal gaits are the walk, trot, gallop, and pace. The strides are long and elastic, at the same time, powerful, characterized by a long push from the hindquarters and extension of the forelegs. Rolling motion and swaying of the body at all gaits is characteristic. Pacing in the show ring is not to be penalized. Slight paddling movement of the front feet is normal. The head is carried level with or slightly above the back.

Commentary

The movement of the Neapolitan Mastiff causes more grief for the "normal" AKC judge used to seeing "normal" dogs.

This is big heavy, massive dog. It is not a graceful dog. If we compare the movement of a "normal" dog to the marvelous grace of an Arabian horse, we would have to compare the movement of a Mastino to the wonderful power of a Clydesdale. It's movement has power, it's movement has strength. But graceful? no, probably not!

Sometimes we describe the movement of the mastino as being like a lion. It often slouches and lumbers when it moves. You can see the shoulders working above the back. It should have good strong extension of the front leg, sometimes it seems as if that big front foot grabs the earth and rolls it underneath the dog. The rear reaches forth and pushes the rest of the dog.

Because of the looseness of the skin and the connective tissue of the overall dog, when viewed from the front, you will see that the dog may paddle. The body may sway and the skin on the back roll from side to side. All this is also normal. Remember, in most "normal" breeds, paddling is undesirable, as it is excess wasteful movement, and it interferes with endurance. In the mastino, it is normal, because of the breed's construction, and as you know, the breed does not need endurance.

When the dog moves, it moves with its head lowered and held forward.
Pacing in the show ring is not to be penalized. Pacing is often considered to be an "easy" gait. Typically, in the conformation ring judges ask that dogs trot around the ring so that movement can be assessed. Often, if the dog does not trot, but paces, the judge may assume that this is a sign of unsoundness of some sort.

In fact judges ask the dogs to trot, not to see if they can trot, but to see if the dog has typical movement for the breed. Assessing reach, drive, length of stride and so froth is easiest to assess at a trot. Pacing is pretty ugly. However, pacing is one of the typical movements for the Neapolitan Mastiff.

When you are judging the Neapolitan Mastiff, and you ask for the dog to move, if it paces instead of trotting, feel free to ask the handler to try again and try to can get the dog to trot. If, however, the dog refuses to trot and continues to pace, you must do your best to assess typical movement at the pace!

The dog should be shown on a loose le1d. Handlers really should not "snug up" the lead behind the head as that tightens the wonderful folds around the neck and affects the all-important dewlap. In warmer weather, the Neapolitan Mastiff may (will probably) not gait ahead of the handler in a happy, showy, flashy manner. In fact, if the dog has run aorund the ring once already, it may move even slower the second time....this tendancy is continued under temperament!

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