Our story begins with a beautiful apricot lady named Gracie.  We have always loved large dogs and were intrigued with the St. Bernard personality but we didn't want to deal with all the hair in the Central Texas heat.  We started doing some research and loved what we had read about mastiffs, however, we thought they might be too big!  We knew we wanted to adopt an older dog and searched the Mastiff Rescue pages and came across a girl that just seemed perfect for our situation.  She was an older girl, only 100lbs and was being fostered in the same city as we lived. The minute we saw her picture and read her bio, we knew she was ours and within an hour, our application had been faxed to the rescue coordinator.  Gracie was everything we wanted in a dog: sweet, loving and laid back.  Unfortunately, she wasn't the healthiest nor was she friendly with other dogs.  Her foster parents told us we shouldn't have another dog while Gracie was with us, as she wouldn't get along with them. That was ok, because we only wanted one dog... or so we thought!
 
A few months after we got Gracie, we decided to start fostering mastiffs.  Our first foster, Murphy, ended up being a keeper.  I fell in love with him instantly and he is the best boy ever.  After a very slow introduction, Gracie and Murphy ended up being best friends and the best of dogs.  For the next few years, we did a lot of rescue work - fostering, evaluations, home visits, etc. - but there was never a dog that we thought we wanted to keep.  Two was the perfect number and we loved our pair.  But Gracie was getting older and Murphy grew dependent on her.  If she went to the vet or was out of the house for some reason, he stopped eating and got very nervous.  We knew that losing Gracie would be very hard on him and we decided that we needed to get him a new friend. With the amount of money we were spending on Gracie's medical issues and dealing with her and Murphy's behavior problems, we decided we wanted a pup from a reputable breeder - one that we could raise ourselves.

After months of research, we came across a breeder who we really liked.  After almost 2.5 years of being on her waiting list, we got our baby Cider. Cider was everything we wanted and more.  We had never wanted a show dog but we caught the bug! Cider finished very quickly and right when I started enjoying showing, she was done.  Having 3 mastiffs at the time, we knew we couldn't add another dog just yet.  My friend Bridgette Hewitt of After Hours Mastiffs knew I was missing showing and gave me the opportunity to co-own a boy (Corky) with her. Our friendship grew and we realized that we have very similar values when it comes to breeding and raising mastiffs. Because of this, we have partnered up with her and Jennifer Reed (who also breeds under "After Hours" Mastiffs). 

Our dogs are family and we believe in trying to produce the most well-adjusted, healthy Mastiffs that fit the standard as closely as possible. Our dogs are pets first and we love taking them out and doing obedience work with them. Our dogs have dabbled in Rally, Agility, Lure Coursing, Tracking, and Carting. We also show and health test all our breeding animals and only breed those that we feel will have something to offer the breed.  
 
We love to talk mastiffs so please feel free to drop us a line if you want to talk dog! 

Giselle Nevada and Jamal Blackwell
Members of the Mastiff Club of America,
Lone Star Mastiff Fanciers, and Heartland Mastiff Club
gnevada@gmail.com

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