History
The native country of
the Tosa Inu breed is Shikoku - the smallest of the four Japanes main islands.
In the mid 17th century
dog fights were also very popular in Japan. The Japanese politics of isolation
ended at the end of the Meji epoch. Hence, more and more foreigners with
big sized dogs entered the country.
The Japanese were
impressed by their size, strength and endurance. Therefore they started
to crossbreed their own dogs of types Akita and Shikoku-Ken with the foreign
dogs. They used Bulldogs in 1872, Mastiffs in 1874, Pointers in 1876, Great
Danes, Bullterriers and St Bernards in 1924, as well as Dogue de Bordeaux
(French Mastiff) in 1954 for the crossbreeding thus creating the present
breed which was named after the region it came from - Tosa.
Due to the second
world war the Tosa breed was almost exterminated. Just a few dogs survived
at the end. Since it was not patriotic to keep such big sized dogs during
that hard time of starvation, the dogs were taken to the better-off North.
Here the breeding of Tosas continued.
A special emphasis
of the Japanese breeding is on dogs which are functional, healthy and enduring.
The appearance was never important.
Even nowadays the
Japanese only do little line breeding, but prefer crossbreeding, which
has a bigger gene structure (according to Helmut Wachtel´s "Hundezucht
2000"), thus explaining why Tosas look so different in terms of size, weight,
color and type.
Tosas are probably
still the only dogs in the world which are used for official dog fights.
However, the Japanese developed a fight according to their mentality, which
cannot be compared at all with the well-known Pitbull fights.
The fight consists
of holy rituals and processions. Similar to Sumo wrestling, the dogs try
to knock down each other and hold each other on the floor. The slightest
signs of fear or aggression lead to the stop of the fight. Exclusively
male dogs fight against each other in two different weight classes.
Despite those rituals
as well as fights mostly without any blood shed, we consider dog fights
in general as a perversion and we reject them. The number of active fighters
has also decreased in Japan. Nowadays, Tosas are mainly considered as families´faithful
companions as well as reliable watchdog.
There are currently
about 3.000 Tosas worldwide, of which the lion´s share is being kept
in Japan.