Crosspost: I found this article on Molosser Talk: http://members.boardhost.com/MolosserTalk/msg/107110.html
Very distrubing.

The hounds from hell
They're big, aggressive -- and increasingly popular

BARBARA RIGHTON

The attacks were ferocious -- and completely unprovoked. In April 1998, eight-year-old Courtney Trempe was playing with friends in Stouffville, near Toronto, when a neighbour's bull mastiff bit and killed her. "Mosley," a 130-lb. male, played with kids all the time, his owner said. Then, four years ago in San Francisco, a woman named Diane Whipple was mauled to death by two presa canario/mastiff crossbreeds, a 112-lb. female and a 123-lb. male. But what happened next was even more disturbing. At Canadian Humane Society kennels, phones began to ring. People couldn't admit they wanted a dog that had killed a child, but "as soon as that woman died," says Humane Society executive director Michael O'Sullivan, "they wanted that breed." Recently, a young woman brought her cane corso mastiff to dog trainer Adrian Vasseur near Peterborough, Ont. Vasseur, cocky at only 19, was shaken by what happened. "While she was talking to me," he recalls, "she stepped on the dog's tail by accident and, boom, it pinned her to the wall. I wouldn't work with it. It was insane."

The popularity of cane corsos and other dog gladiators is growing across the country, just as Ontario is poised to ban pit bulls -- Mini Coopers to the mastiffs' Hummers -- in August. "These great big dangerous dogs have been creeping up slowly on the radar," says Vancouver's Judy Stone, founder of the Animal Advocates Society of B.C. Many owners are not capable of handling them, and so the dogs are relegated to a lonely existence, chained in backyards -- or worse. "Their lives are pointless, and short," Stone says. "It is both a safety and a cruelty issue. There are 400 breeds. Can't people find something better?" The short answer is that in this age of extreme sports, mastiffs are a dog of choice, not just for drug dealers but for young people who want a menacing display of arm candy.

Arguably these dogs once had a real purpose as hunting companions and protectors of families and flocks. With the advent of the Internet, breeds few Canadians knew, such as the Caucasian ovcharka (a mastiff type widely believed to be the most deadly dog on the planet) became accessible to anyone. Reads one ovcharka breeder's website, "Thanks to this year's buyers from . . . British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario." Warns another, "The Caucasian ovcharka is far too aggressive . . . much like with the handling of dynamite, inexperience can lead to disaster."

So it's small wonder some big dog fanciers prefer to keep a low profile. The owner of a presa canario kennel near Stayner, Ont., would not talk on the record. His conversations with the Los Angeles Times after Whipple's death gave him too much notoriety, he says. Besides, "They twisted my words." What he was quoted as saying then: "[The presa] is going to catch on with lunatics before it gets a good base with serious owners." What he will say now: "My dogs are not the fighting strain." Besides, he sells puppies for $2,500, and that all but guarantees a good home. However, in the Kelowna Daily Courier this spring, a 3 1/2-year-old presa female was going for $375, including crate.

Also available in the classifieds section of a Vancouver paper, "fila/mastiffs" advertised as "families' best friend, intruders' worst nightmare." The fila is a fila Brasileiro, developed in Brazil in the 19th century to hunt jaguars -- and runaway slaves. They are no family's best friend, says Cindy Tran, a veterinarian and dog-trainer in Markham, Ont. "People have to look at a dog's genetic predisposition. Big dogs that were bred to kill things, may kill things." Filas, she says flatly, "should be licensed like handguns."

It is axiomatic in the world of dog experts that no two agree on anything. In Oxfordshire, England, bull mastiff aficionado and dog show judge David Hancock praises many mastiffs as "good tempered." They should be protected from unsuitable owners, he says. "No one with a criminal record should be allowed to own such a dog. And anyone breeding dogs over 80 lb. should have the stock temperament-tested by a qualified professional." Any volunteers?

O'Sullivan warns that dogs should not be used as protection devices. "Get an alarm system instead," he says. Sadly, concludes Tran, "as long as common sense is not common, people will continue to get a dog that is not suitable. Pity the neighbours. Pity the neighbours' kids and pity that poor slob of a dog."

Link To Article: http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/life/article.jsp?content=20050718_109130_109130

I don't think they will become the next pit bull, well lets hope not anyway! They just need to be trained in the right way because it is usually the owners fault that the dog is the way it is! The thing you said about that woman stepping on the dog's tail by accidant and then it pinned her up against the wall, it was only self defense that the dog did that, it must have hurt even if it was by accident! I hope this helps!