Idioma:

Statements made by Dr. Ênio Monte, 82 years old, civil engineer graduated from the Polytechnic School of USP in 1951, owner of ABC Kennel - SP - Brazil, one of the great breeders of Fila Brasileiro in the 60's, 70's and 80's; on 07/16/11 at Sociedade Hípica Paulista, São Paulo, in an interview with Francisco Peltier, Airton Campbell, Mariana Campbell, Américo Cardoso dos Santos and Mariana Cardoso dos Santos Abate, as recorded on tape:

Mariana, Airton, Ênio Monte, Americo, Mariana e Chico Peltier.

Dr. Ênio said that in 1970 he designed a new breed of horse for jumping, crossing stallions of different European breeds (mainly German) with mares of several other breeds. The goal was to get horses that jumped high and well for equestrian competitions.

With the results obtained in the products, it was defined that the mares should be of the English Purebred breed. As Dr. Ênio already bred Fila Brasileiro, he decided to name the new breed of Brazilian Equestrian Horse (B H). In 1977 Dr. Ênio founded the breeders' association. Today, after 41 years of breeding, Dr. Ênio is the chairman of the board of this association, which has about 400 members and the Brazilian Equestrian is a breed of jumping horses known worldwide. Brazil went from importer to exporter of equestrian horses. Dr. Ênio said that he always believed that the genetic improvement of any breed and any animal can only be done with the introduction of another breed to cause a blood shock.

Regarding the Fila Brasileiro, Dr. Ênio informed that:

He came across the cattle dog as a young student, when he lived in the neighborhood of Ipiranga, in São Paulo, and saw dogs accompanying cattle herds that went to the slaughterhouse.

After graduating as an engineer in 1951, he started building movie theaters in several cities in the interior of São Paulo.

At that time, he met Dr. Paulo Santos Cruz who had developed the standard, made the name of Fila Brasileiro breed official and established the theory that Fila descends from the breeding between old Bloodhound, Bulldog and English Mastiff dogs (Mastiff). Dr. Paulo asked him, when traveling for work, to inquire about the existence of Filas on farms in the interior of São Paulo and in the south of Minas.

Dr. Ênio ended up bringing several mares of different origins and mated them mainly with Orixá de Parnapuan, whom he had received from Dr. Paulo.

Regarding the aim of genetic improvement of the Fila breed, Dr. Ênio said:

 “In my opinion the ideal would be a blood clash with the Fila Brasileiro's breeding breed and then I imported an English Mastiff dog. A very beautiful dog came, but it was inferior to the Orixá of Parnapuan, and I was unable to use it in breeding, as it was not fertile. I knew then that João Batista Gomes had brought another Mastiff and managed to have him mated. It was a very big, strong dog. The descendants of João Batista Gomes's Mastiff produced good results, had good phenotype and temperament, unlike the descendants of the Neapolitan Mastiff who were unpredictable. I had several litters, from A to Z, each litter started with a letter. ”

Dr. Ênio also said:

 “What I thought was that this blood clash would be very good because we had female Filas from different origins (from Varginha, Silvestre Ferraz, near São Lourenço, south of Minas), so the ideal would be to give a blood shock with the developing breed, in this case the English Mastiff. Then I heard that someone had brought the Neapolitan Mastiff, he was a relative of that breeder of Km 26 (Antenor Lara Campos - Tozinho), but these Neapolitan Mastiffs had a problem, they were very treacherous dogs, they had a lot of problems with these dogs. I understood that the ideal would be to continue crossing with English Mastiff to return to the origin. The Neapolitan was already a parallel cross that had not worked out very well. ”

 “Ibrahim's Mastiff was originally from the breeding of João Batista Gomes, which produced good results. The English Mastiff was docile. The Neapolitan was somewhat unpredictable. ”

At this point in the meeting, the following question was asked by Airton Campbell: At that time, to register dogs at the BKC, was there an idea to create a new breed: For example, the Brazilian Mastiff, to receive the products from these crossings? Was there a parallel book at Kennel Club Paulista or Brazil Kennel Club to register and control these crosses of Fila with other breeds?

Dr. Ênio replied: "No! There was no such thing.”.

Then Francisco Peltier showed Dr. Ênio numerous photos of crossbred filas with Fila pedigree issued by BKC. Dr. Enio disapproved of most of the phenotypes, mainly the stocky ones like the Neapolitan Mastiffs or the “doguish”-like Great Danes or Danish Dogs. Dr. Ênio added that the "stocky- type dogs resembled the old Monger dogs and Pekingese. “These stocky dogs, with short legs, are really outside the standard of the traditional Fila Brasileiro; they seem to be from another breed”.