Hi all, I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts about our current situation. We have a 7 year old female bullmastiff Sally. She was raised with our very sweet Doberman Jack. Jack recently passed at age 14. He was very gentle and Sally was clearly the alpha. We also have two cats (raised with the dogs) and two young children (6 and 3 years old, also obviously raised with the dogs, lol). We are thinking of adding another puppy to the family and trying to decide between another BM, or trying an english mastiff. A few thoughts we had: we both normally work full time (and will return to the office after the pandemic) and need a low energy dog, hence the mastiff breeds. We are looking for another dog to keep Sally company, but also for general guarding for our house and companionship. One thing about Sally is she is very territorial. We did lots of early socialization with people, as well as dogs (including doggy day care). But she is not dog friendly (which I understand is not uncommon for the breed) and she is also very territorial of our house/her home. My husband wants a guard dog, but I would like for our next dog to be less territorial (but still guard, does that exist???) and more dog-friendly. I don't know if it's a breed thing, something specific to Sally, or something we did wrong/not enough of. (Please, no harsh judgment!) I want to be able to occasionally take my do g to sit at a patio restaurant, and not have to worry constantly that she's going to bark or lunge at another dog. Is that only Golden Retrievers?! At this point, all we know is we need a male puppy and that it will be either a BM or EM. My other concern is drooling. Sally doesn't have very droopy flews, so she does not drool except when getting a treat/dinner. She drips water after she drinks from her bowl, but other than that, not much. I definitely do not want the slings of slobber. Is that all EMs or again, is that specific to the actual dog's flews? I'm leaning toward EM because I think they're less territorial, even more lazy , and more gentle. Sorry for the very long and rambly post! TIA!
Here is Sally!
Here is Sally!