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.  We fostered quite a bit and as Gracie started getting older, we thought we needed to get another mastiff. 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.

We wanted a pet but got bit with the show bug :-) We found that we really enjoy showing and learning about more and more about the the breed. We eventually started breeding, and co-bred our first two breedings with Cider. Cider's first breeding was co-bred with Karen Flocker, her breeder. Her second breeding was co-bred with Karen as well as Bridgette Hewitt and Jennifer Reed of After Hours Mastiffs. Having the experience of co-breeding litters with them have taught me so much about how to breed responsibly, taking account health, temperament and conformation. Karen also taught us quite a bit on how to socialize puppies in the whelping box (which we really enjoy!). I think these experiences w/ a mentor have taught us how to be better breeders and I thank everyone, especially Karen so much for allowing me to be part of her mastiff family.

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

This free script provided by
JavaScript Kit