History-USA

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HISTORY OF THE BREED IN THE UNITED STATES

The Neapolitan Mastiff has been documented in the United States since the early 1970's when ads for an "Italian Bulldog" appeared in the New York papers. Jane Pampalone, later the first Secretary of the first club, the Neapolitan Mastiff Club of America (NMCA) imported a Neapolitan Mastiff male from Italy. While this dog's paperwork is in the USNMC archives as the oldest documented purebred Neapolitan Mastiff in the United States, we believe that Italian families had for decades brought their mastini with them even as they brought their children when they immigrated to this country.

The NMCA was formed in the mid-1970's by Michael Sottile Sr, who was self-appointed life-president for the club and ran a registry for the breed as his personal business. The NMCA acted as the focal point for information on the breed, hosting rare-breed shows, and distributing brochures and the NMCA paperwork was the dominant paperwork for the breed in this country for many years.

As the club grew, however, the stress of managing such an operation and maintaining integrity of the registry paperwork, all the while providing the benefits of a parent club to members began to tell on the operations of the NMCA, In 1991, two separate clubs formed in different parts of the country to take up the banner.

The American Neapolitan Mastiff Association (ANMA) formed and was headed by Mrs. Donna Ayala who aced as Secretary, Treasurer, Editor, Registrar and later Webmaster.

Her husband acted as President. At almost the identical moment the United States Neapolitan Mastiff Club (USNMC) was being formed by a group of people centered along the East coast.

The ANMA and the USNMC operated separately, but both organizations had the same goals: of running a registry with integrity, and betterment of the breed leading to AKC recognition. It was easy for the two clubs to cooperate. Each clubs accepted the other's paperwork and used similar general procedures mimicking AKC's own.

The ANMA ceased its registry operations effective January, 1998, and appears to have ceased all club operations at about the same time.

Michael Sottile Sr died in 1995 and his son, Michael Jr took over the presidency of the club and ownership of the registry. The NMCA appears to have greatly quiesced operations since 1994.

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