ABA 2024: Breed Mastery - Steve Coleman-Hole

What does it take to protect a vulnerable native breed when only a handful of puppies are born each year? 

In this episode, Sara sits down with Steve from Womlu Mastiffs, winner of the Breed Mastery Award and finalist in both Breeder Excellence and Breeder Vision, to share the real-world realities of breeding and preserving one of the UK’s rarest giants.

From the emotional toll of small litters and stillbirths to navigating import logistics, fertility challenges and the changing culture of dog showing, Steve’s story is a masterclass in long-term commitment. For support tailored to your breed, background and breeding mindset, join the Brew Crew and connect with breeders who understand that protecting a breed means playing the long game.

📌 Show Notes: breedersbrew.com/notes/s3e25
👉 Follow Steve & Tracy on Instagram: @womlu_mastiffs
 

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Transcript

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (00:22)
I'm confident you will enjoy this chat with Steve from Womlu Mastiffs. We discuss his journey into dog breeding, the challenges faced in maintaining the mastiff breed and the importance of health testing and importing dogs for genetic diversity. We also explore the impacts environmental factors like microplastics on fertility and the challenges of multiple dog households with breeding dynamics.

emphasising the need for responsible breeding practices and support. Enjoy the listen.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (00:53)
called somebody else on a previous episode the triple threat but actually I realised that they're not and Steve and Steve's wife Tracy who's not on the call but they're very much in the dogs together.

They really are the triple threats because they were finalists for the Breeder Vision Award, the Breeder Excellence Award, and they actually won the Breed Mastery Award. So I'd to welcome to the podcast Steve.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (01:19)
Good morning.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (01:20)
It would be fabulous, Steve, if you could just start off with a bit of your background, how you've, well, obviously we cross paths quite frequently, but how did we get to that point? What's your history in dogs? Why do you love the breed that you now have? So yeah, a little bit of background about how you've come to be would be fabulous.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (01:40)
Yeah, I didn't really grow up with dogs. We had a pet dog when that died. Never got another one. And basically my parents told me that when you get married, you can do what you want and get whatever pets you wanted. I grew up as a child with Blue Peter and everything and fell in love with Labradors because they're always on the telly So me and the wife decided when we got married, that's what we were going to have. But that changed in 1991.

when a friend of ours owned a pub and they told us they were getting a dog, a Mastiff. Didn't even know what a Mastiff was, had no idea. But then we got the call, we've got him, you've got to come and see him. So we went to the pub, walked up the stairs and at the top of the stairs we were met by a Mastiff and it just broke our hearts and that was the dog that we wanted. So we got married in 1991, came back from honeymoon, contacted the Mastiff Association.

and got our first Mastiff. And that's where it all started. Luckily, or unluckily, the people we got him from said, do you want to come to a dog show? And we said, dog show? What's that? Because like I say, not growing up with dogs, we didn't even know they had dog shows. So we went to our first show in 1991 and we were hooked. And we've shown ever since. But what we did soon realise was the dog that we bought.

as a pet, was a pet, you know, he didn't really do well at showing, but we soon realised that we needed another dog. And that's how it all started really from there. And it's sort of snowballed to what we've got today.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (03:11)
And so what do you have today? Talk through some of your achievements and because you're here, there and everywhere, you're always around the country in different countries. So just talk through your some of your higher accolades share with people.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (03:21)
think

the biggest highlight was Bertie, who we didn't breed. We brought in as a puppy, but he's won all over Europe. He's champion in Ireland. He's an international champion. He's the only Mastiff to ever get a group floor place in at Cruffs. And, you know, he was just a dream to show. I didn't actually show him. We had a friend that absolutely loved showing.

was a junior handler. So she showed him and they just bonded. were, you know, absolutely brilliant in the ring. But we've got more than one dog we show. We've retired Bertie now because there wasn't anything else he could do. He had two best of breeds at Crufts, a reserve best of breed at Crufts. And like I say, now we've got some of our younger dogs that we've bred ourselves coming through. So they're just starting off on their journey. We go to Ireland about eight times a year.

We do Belgium, France, Denmark, Geneva. So yeah, we're all over the place.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (04:19)
You've definitely got the show bug, that's for sure. So explain to people that might not know, you have English mastiffs, they're different to bull mastiffs. Does anyone ever get confused or any other type of mastiffs? Do people mistake your breed for anything else?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (04:35)
Right, straight away, you've called them English Mastiffs. They're not English Mastiffs, they are just Mastiffs. They are one of the oldest breeds of dogs in the world. They do date back to Roman times. And every Mastiff is a derivative of the Mastiff, which is what we've got. I understand why people call them English Mastiffs because if they ask you what breed it is and you say Mastiff, straight away they say, Bull Mastiff.

If you then turn around and say to them, oh, it's an English mastiff, then it's like, oh, an English bull mastiff. No, it is just mastiff. The problem is there's not many of them about. 2023, there was 69 puppies born in the whole of the UK. So people don't see them. So it's educating them. I haven't got a problem with them being called English mastiffs, but some people within the breed, you would be hung if you said it in front of them.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (05:28)
This is really interesting because bulldogs is exactly the same. So I feel bad that I didn't know that because especially nowadays, Americans will always refer to the bulldog as the English bulldog. And then obviously the French bulldog become amazingly popular. So I now say to people, I've got English bulldogs, but they are only bulldogs. So it's exactly, I'm in the same boat as you that I never realised that. Because like you said, any other bulldog is based off of

the bulldog but it gets so confusing now I just say to people they're English bulldogs because they're going to think I've got French bulldogs or I don't know American bullies or something rather in between.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (06:05)
Yeah, I think when you go back years

and years ago when there wasn't all the different types of mastiffs, obviously it was easier, but you know, there's so many different varieties now. And of course not everybody knows their breeds. We find that the older generation do tend to know what a mastiff is because obviously they were a lot more popular in the days. And like I say, with our numbers declining now, you can see why people, you know, do get mistaken quite easily.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (06:33)
just to put some context to it for people that are listening, there are registered around 25,000 Labradors a year. So to have only 69 mastiffs registered is absolutely minuscule of a number. So why do you think the numbers have decreased?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (06:49)
Yeah.

I think obviously people's lifestyles have changed. People are busy. Houses have gotten a lot smaller. People are living in flats and stuff. everybody looks at a mastiff is, you know, it was the heaviest dog in the world. They're not the biggest, they, when the Guinness Book of World Records did the record for the heaviest dog, it did weigh in at 23 and a half stone. So yes, they are a large breed and they're a very difficult breed.

bring up. It's like bringing up a baby because the bones are very soft. You have to avoid running up and down stairs, jumping in and out of cars. And the other major factor is also vet bills. If you are unfortunate enough to have to visit the vet with a mastiff, with any operations, the bills can be eye-watering, they really can. And also, we have got a few health issues. We are on the watch list with the Kennel Club. More and more people now are doing their homework before they get a dog.

they can be put off with some of the issues. And it's very difficult to improve on the breed when the gene pool is so small. So obviously, that's where we import a lot of stuff from abroad. But everything comes back to a few dogs in the lines. So it is difficult to breed out issues if you have got them.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (08:06)
Out of interest, what's your Kennel Club coefficient like your breed average?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (08:11)
I think it's down it's about 13 percent I think but obviously it is difficult to get that's why we like to say we are bringing a lot of stuff in from abroad.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (08:22)
How

do you find it be good just to cover sort of importing dogs because not many people do that and obviously you've just highlighted the importance of it because you need the gene pool. How what's the logistics? How do you go about finding a breeder? Actually getting the dog over to you just for anyone that hasn't imported a dog before it'd good for them to know.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (08:42)
Yeah, think social media has really, really helped with Facebook and Instagram and everything. And like I say, you join a lot of groups, you become friends with people all over the world. And obviously everyone's posting their dogs online. So of course, you see something that catches your eye. You contact the breeder or the owner. And then you sort of build up a bit of a rapport with them and stuff. And obviously where we show in Europe.

Obviously we get to see some of the dogs as well. You know, I find abroad some of the dogs absolutely look lovely, but when it comes to movement, it lets them down a little bit, which then obviously puts us off. So yes, it does get, in a way, is easier with social media. But then also I think restrictions now on bringing in frozen semen is getting harder and harder. I know customs can be very awkward when it turns up because they can hang on to it and ruin it.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (09:36)
it is something I'm slightly concerned about. It is hard because I feel that we had a lot of government restrictions were relaxed to make diversity of dogs easier. And now they seem to be regining them back in, which just seems a bit crazy because it's like sort of trying to put...

you know, the horse back in the stable, isn't it? Once you're used to something...

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (09:57)
Yeah, I think this new legislation that's

coming in about, you know, can't import puppies until six months. With mastiffs, that's going to be very, very tricky because obviously food bills for mastiffs are very large when they're puppies because they do eat you out of house and home. And of course, breeders don't want to hang on to a puppy for six months. And also you want to integrate them into your pack as well. And with a mastiff getting to six months.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (10:02)
Yeah.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (10:25)
you know, they have fear stages and stuff like that. And if you don't work it correctly, you you can end up with a scared dog in the future. And also I think where we're a vulnerable breed like others, there should be an exemption for it. And especially if you are a proper breeder, you know, there should be ways of getting around it, but they don't seem to care. And I do personally feel the kennel club with some of the vulnerable breeds. It's almost, they wish the breed had gone.

you know, they don't want us anymore. That's how you sort of feel as a vulnerable breed at times.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (10:57)
Yeah, well, I feel like that and I've got a vulnerable breed. So the kennel club like, mate, when are these bulldogs gonna disappear? They are the bane of a...

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (11:03)
It is almost a headache for them.

We got the vulnerable breed at crufts and stuff but the other year they had a picture lined up of all the vulnerable breeds and they removed the mastiff from it because apparently they didn't like the eyes on it.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (11:19)
This is the problem when you're pandering to please everybody. I don't know, the American Kennel Club, see, I don't know, they probably don't have the same type of pressures. And I think the Kennel Club have tied themselves up in knots a little bit because the American Kennel Club are very much just a registration database and they don't oversee breed standards. So it's not really their responsibility if they're not bred to the healthiest of,

criteria where the kennel clubs kind of took everything under their wing and now that's made them accountable for everything and then it's easy to go you're not doing a very good job when...

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (11:55)
Yeah, it's the same. They had the Assure Breeder

scheme, which we belong to. Absolutely brilliant. But obviously they've done away with it now.

they've introduced, you know, they've watered it right down. Rather than have a five sort of star rating, I do believe that anybody that breeds should have some form of health testing, just to try and improve the breeding of anything like that. But just to do away with a breed, so they can get more people on it, I just don't think it's right.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (12:21)
No,

what health testing do you do for the mastiffs out of interest?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (12:24)
Well, we

do hips, elbows, cystinuria which will kill a dog if you put two effective dogs together. It's crystals forming in the bladder, which is just a swap. So it's a simple test. We do eyes. Heart testing. Many years ago, we had a massive that needed an operation. It was a big dog. The vet wanted him heart tested before.

he was operated on, so he went to a specialist, got a full clean bill of health, went in for the operation, 20 minutes into the operation, died of a heart attack. ever since then, we've been a little bit dubious with heart testing. And we've now just started to do the long hair gene because there's a lot more what we call fluffy mastiffs appearing, which we think dates back to just after the World War II when they introduced St. Bernard's to get the numbers back up.

So it's a recessive gene that sits there. But it's a simple test again. You can do it with the same test you should do with a cisternure. It's a swab. And it tells you if the dog carrying the gene or not. So you can eradicate the long hair mastiff if you want to.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (13:25)
Okay, and what colours do they come in? Is it just the Brindle and the Fawn?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (13:29)
Well, you've got a fawn and then you've got an apricot and then you could end up with a fawn brindle or an apricot brindle. And you don't see them in this country, but I think Australia, there's a thing called a pied mastiff, which is very similar to St. Bernard, which is like white with patches over it. So there was a real big thing, I think back in the 80s that you can't breed them, all the puppies should be destroyed and they actually run a test.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (13:37)
okay.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (13:59)
So you could, you know, if you had it, you didn't breed from it, but you don't see them over here.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (14:04)
So do you think that's come from being crossed with the St Bernard's, that white as well or not?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (14:10)
Yeah,

well certainly you always get white on mastiffs, even the fawn have it, but it doesn't show up. But on the dark brindles, you can end up, we've got one that's got white toes. Normally you end up with a big white patch on the chest. You don't seem to get it anywhere else. We currently got a mastiff now that has got no white on it at all, a real dark looking brindle, which looks absolutely lovely.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (14:15)
okay.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (14:34)
it is everything is sort of coming back we possibly think to the St Bernard's.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (14:39)
Right, okay, and it's not classed a miss mark or anything, because it is just part and parcel of the breed, yeah.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (14:44)
no, you can show. Obviously,

if you've got a mastiff and it's got big chunks of white on it, obviously if the judge is deciding between two dogs, you'll probably lose it possibly on

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (14:55)
Yeah, okay, fair enough, fair enough. have you imported females as well as males or just males?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (15:01)
Yet we've imported one female from Italy.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (15:04)
Okay, so yeah, where's the countries that you have imported from? Have they been mainly Italy

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (15:09)
and Czechoslovakia. The first one was a disaster. We used a foreign courier. And his sister came over with him as well and went up to Nottingham. And in the evening we got a phone call from them and said, just check your dog over because I found a couple of ticks. So of course, we had a friend staying with us who's luckily his eyesight was a lot better than ours.

So we sort of laid him down and everything. Cut a long story short, we took 80 ticks off of him. Most of them were babies, really, really small. And we think what happened, the courier was stopping off in forests and taking them for a walk. The only thing we can think of is possibly the dog sat in a ticks nest or something, because it was really, really strange. But two weeks later, then the dog collapsed and everything. But cut a long story short, he ended up with Lyme's disease.

which affected his joints and everything. So unfortunately it's a dog that we chose not to breed from in the end, because he just ended up with different issues because he was on so many antibiotics and everything. So that is one of the gambles you take, but luckily now we have found a superb courier that he's the only person we will now trust to bring dogs in for us.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (16:16)
And that's, Chris? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (16:17)
Joyball from K9 Courier absolutely

brilliant. He's the only person, like I say. He also shows as well. He's got bull mastiffs, so he understands the giant breeds as well, and he treats them like their own.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (16:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's what you want. And so are the breeds more popular abroad or is it the same low numbers sort of everywhere?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (16:37)
I believe in America

they're the 36th most popular dog now. So they are huge. They can sometimes look a little bit different. Sometimes a little bit longer in the leg over there. But I think across Europe, France, Italy, I think the numbers are declining there as well now. So because the days have gone of large breeders to have a large kennel of mastiffs, you need very, very deep pockets.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (16:42)
wow.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (17:03)
and space and it is a full-time job.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (17:04)
Yeah,

how much food do they eat a day?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (17:08)
Well, when they're puppies, on average, they're growing a stone a month. So we feed kibble now. We used to feed raw, but we've gone on to kibble. And I suppose a male dog could possibly eat a couple of kilos a day.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (17:22)
Yeah, so

you're looking at a bag a week at least? Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (17:25)
Oh, easily, Yeah, the dogs

we've got now, I suppose we're getting through probably 24, 25 kilos a day in food.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (17:35)
That's crazy. Yeah, I mean, it makes me laugh when you go, there's not that many big breeders around the world. Steve, you're definitely one of them, that's for sure.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (17:42)
But there used to be, you you

go back into the 50s and 60s, there'd be dozens and dozens of people that would have 30, 40 mastiffs without a problem and breeding.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (17:51)
as you say,

I think it's the risk of if something doesn't go to plan.

It's all well and good having a dog and spending £200 on dog food a month. Some people would cope with that. Some people, well, the insurance would only go one way up and up and up, wouldn't it? But I think it's always that risk of, as you say, when you're dealing with the big breeds, an anesthetic on a French bulldog compared to an anesthetic on a 70 kilo dog is light years apart. And I think that's the problem, just not knowing what that top end...

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (18:11)
You

Yeah, when you sort of say

70 kilos, a fully grown female would probably be up to about 90 kilos and a male would probably go up to about 120 kilos. And I think the thing that's going to stop breeding, I personally think, especially giant breeds, are vets because now all vets are sort of being privatised and being bought out by big companies and everything like that.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (18:36)
Yeah, I mean...

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (18:49)
and all they're doing is putting up their fees and stopping out of hours. It's going to stop a lot of people being able to breed.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (18:58)
it all just becomes too risky, isn't it? You're just taking too much risk not to know that your dog is going to get the right medical support should it need it. And then you're just writing blank cheques to people that you've never met before.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (19:13)
Yeah, you know to go to have to go 30 40

miles for an out of hours vets is just crazy, especially with giant breeds because the one thing they can suffer with is bloat. And it's the difference between life and death. If you if you've got to travel hour and a half just to get to an out of hours vets, you lose your dog.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (19:30)
I do feel like there's been a lot of, I would say sneaky changes, but there's been a lot of minor changes that have changed, like the culture of dog ownership has changed. And yeah, it just definitely feels a lot more commercialised and a lot more about...

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (19:45)
These corporate

vets don't want owners like us. They're not interested because we know too much. They just want to do the microchipping or whatever else. The injections, the yearly injections, the flea. You sign up and pay a monthly fee. We used our vets for 30 years and they've literally sold out a year ago.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (19:59)
Well, yes, sell you the antibiotics and your wormer and all the rest of it and eat. Spay your dog.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (20:12)
we're going to improve everything. All they've done is put the bills up and done away with out of hours. And I know someone that's didn't realise they weren't doing the out of hours, phoned them up because their dog had bloat, had to go to Eastbourne, which is like 20 miles away. You know, the dog didn't make it because of that.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (20:29)
That's terrible. I really do think that communities are dog people. know how in America they do all these scholarships and balsaries and all this kind of stuff. I feel that there should be pockets of dog communities. So like the show community, for instance, where we should pay for some children of dog families to go through vet school and to set up.

breeder friendly practices. Like if we don't back it, who else is going to? They're not, are they? on, sorry.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (20:55)
Yeah. yeah, no. I think the

trouble is you're going to end up what I call them like hobby breeders, where someone's got a dog, you know, they've got a bitch, they love it, they want a puppy, we breed her. Nothing wrong with it, but they're not necessarily going to do the health testing and everything like that. That's where I think the kennel club need to be stepping in.

If you want to register as Dog with us, whatever your breed type is, you should be doing this, this, this and this.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (21:19)
I don't think that'll help because people just go, well, I'll just read the dog and make register it then. I'll show you the parent's paperwork.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (21:24)
Well, yeah, some...

To be honest, the only reason

you need to register a dog with a kennel club is if you want to show it, isn't it?

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (21:30)
Yeah and the numbers are showing a dwindling Years ago it did used to matter that you went and used a champion stud and you know they had these accolades and but nowadays that doesn't matter that doesn't well to some people it matters but for the people like you've just said where they've just got a female they want to breed it they probably don't really matter they're probably just going to use the dog that's closest

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (21:52)
Unless you bring

in a license and if you want to breed you've got to have a license.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (21:57)
Yeah, and I think there

are...

There are rumblings of change. think I read a review. It was like a like a I need to share it, but it was a review on like the dog breeding license so far. And they're basically saying that they up until this point, stud dogs have been excluded. So they want to now include stud dogs into the whole licensing. They want to reduce it from three litters a year to two litters a year. how that was written, they understood that the majority of breeders

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (22:18)
Right.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (22:25)
like 80 % are just people like what you described they've got a female they they want to go through the experience so they want to keep a puppy and they're just gonna give it a go so then they're not necessarily up to date up to speed with all the expectations of what should happen but I still couldn't see how this license was gonna and because they weren't saying everybody has to do it they were just saying two litters but as you said surely it's if you breed a dog you have to do these things regardless of who you are regardless of their registered for the

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (22:36)
No.

Yeah.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (22:55)
safety of the dog if not anything like

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (22:57)
Yeah, because

the big the biggest problem with the license now, you know, someone like us, we go for the breeders license. Fine, you do an inspection, you pass it. But then they pass you details on to planning. And then what they're saying is, you're running a business now. So you need change of use on your house, you need to go from residential to commercial. And of course, if it goes into planning, they're not going to give it to you.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (23:10)
Yep. Yep.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (23:20)
and then all the neighbours will be up in arms because you know, you're a dog breed, it's going to be noise and stuff like that. So that's something that needs to be addressed because if they refuse you, technically you can't have dogs anymore.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (23:25)
thousand percent.

Yeah, it's, well, I'm surely, if you have a dog activity.

then you're not just breeding for profit. So you shouldn't need to be a business because the activity is the passion and you need the dogs to fuel the passion. So that's why you're breeding the dogs. So to me, as soon as there's a dog sport involved, whether that be showing, agility, fly ball, working, whatever, as soon as that then, to me personally, common sense, you should disregard the fact that it's then a business. like people will make money. And so yeah, keep accounts.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (23:43)
No.

You

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (24:07)
But like charities keep accounts don't they? So So surely it should be on that kind of yeah, I'm keeping accounts So yeah, if I was to make money, then I will pay some tax But my purpose is not to breed for profit is to breed for my passion Why I understand I could end up in profit But I don't know there just seems to be this gray area that the concept of that Because if you don't have a passion then you are breeding for profit. You can't really deny it Like if you make money

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (24:09)
Yeah. Yeah.

yeah, we're breeding,

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (24:36)
then.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (24:36)
we breed to improve the breed. That's what we're doing. not doing, you know, we don't do it for money. The amount of bad luck we've had.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (24:41)
No. Oh my god, you definitely don't, Steve. I was gonna say. You'd be

best off selling all the dogs and having a nice cruise somewhere.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (24:49)
Yeah, yeah, I used to know, same as you do, I used to know people who had XL bullies and it is eye-watering the money they were selling for puppies and getting for a litter and stuff. And you sort of think here we are struggling to get the bitches into whelp and stuff. And they were just knocking litter out after litter. So, yes, things do need to change. But they sort of tar everyone with the same brush, unfortunately.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (25:09)
Yes,

and they've told that because that.

industry market did exist, every dog breeder gets tied with that brush. You know, hang on a second. Like, no, those people were never in that doing it for those motivations and those purposes anyway. So surely you should have an understanding of how that differentiates them. So let's talk about some of the challenges that you've had with breeding because you own big dogs. So most people think, well, if you've got, like you said, 80, 100

kilo dog which I think is absolutely insane but if you've got a dog that big then your dog must have like 14 pups a litter

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (25:47)
I

think when you go back years ago, mastiffs did have 10, 12, 14 puppies and you still get it occasionally now but what I've found with a lot of breeders now, the numbers are really dwindling. You end up with four or six and I think a lot of that's got to do with climate change as well because when you speak to fertility specialists and stuff they're seeing it.

It's the same in the wild as well apparently with the wildlife not producing the same amount. There's all different reasons for that. Some people say it's all to do with plastics, especially in the boys because like say, dog food goes down a conveyor belt, it picks up microplastics and it ends up affecting the sperm on the dogs. As you know, we use you to do all our sperm analysis and...

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (26:11)
and humans and us. Yeah.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (26:29)
You can have a dog, you can test it, absolutely brilliant. You test it a year later or six months later and it's dropped off. Nothing's changed. They're all on the same food. We give them vitamins and everything. And I think also like with the girls, you could almost set your clock every six months they'd come into season. But now it does seem to be the weather is really affecting them. They're coming in earlier, they're coming in later.

And it's like now hours technically aren't due until probably the end of March, but something's definitely happening because the boys are marking all over the place, which is a sign that someone's coming into season.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (27:03)
I have some clients in and they go, we never used to do all of this stuff years ago. We never used to have the blood test and we never checked the boys and we just let them run around the garden and they get on with it. But like you just highlighted, the world is so much more complex than it ever used to be. Even the foods that we eat. know, years ago, people were cooking from scratch. Now you just pierce the lid, shove it in the microwave. You got a hot meal in seconds, job's done. People are so busy, the pace of life has got

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (27:25)
Yes.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (27:31)
so quick, that now it's so complex that yeah, any one of those can be a disruptor. Microplastics is huge, it's impacted humans massively. I mean, I think I used to work with a lady that used to be the chairperson of a twin society.

And I said to oh, is that because twins runs in your family? Because I went to school with someone and she had every other generation it was twins. And I actually had two sets of twins in my school. And she was like, no, you do realise like 80 % of twins nowadays are IVF. And I'm oh, okay then. She's

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (28:04)
Sorry.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (28:06)
like, no, most twins are gonna be IVF because human fertility has decreased so much that that's now what we have to do to get kids. And so it just goes to show if humans are going to that.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (28:12)
Yeah.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (28:17)
degree, why would our dogs that live exactly our lifestyle in our houses, like they there's no animal no closer to us than a dog that they wouldn't their fertility wouldn't be impacted too. And I do feel that like you have a giant breed. And I think that just exacerbates the problem tenfold. I think as soon as you do some extremes, the bulldogs they at one point they were super extreme, they had their own problems. If you're super big, if you're super small, which is like as soon

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (28:22)
Yes, yeah.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (28:46)
as you have an egg that just adds an extra element of complexity and difficulty that you do feel like well salmon swimming upstream sometimes to make some basic things happen.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (28:54)
Yeah, I think our problem is because all of our

dogs are pets as well. Yeah, that is predominantly what they are. If they don't like showing, we don't show them but...

A lot of them, mastiffs like, you can't put a mastiff on their own in a kennel, they do not like it. a lot of the girls live together, but that creates problems because if you've got one dominant bitch, it will suppress the others. And, you know, so we're having to fight with that as well. So sometimes we move one of the girls in with the boys before they're coming into season. it's not as simple as everyone thinks, or we just stick to dogs. Like I say, we do all the progesterone testing.

and we predominantly do TCI which is putting the sperm in using cameras and everything. So everything's spot on, the sperm's good, the progesterone's good, you know it's going in and they still don't take. And then you hear someone that's got a pet dog, one dog, do a natural mating and ends up with 12 puppies and you just think, know. And whether it is the environment, I do not know. I don't know if that comes into the mix as well.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (29:58)
Yeah, I think it's a combination of all the, as soon as you get a multiple dog household and there's their own pack dynamics, then you're always gonna have that extra element. So I do always feel that those girls that live in a house and they're the only dog, that they literally don't have any of those,

dog communication concerns, they're just living their best life, I suppose. So I do find in any setting in any breed, generally those type of females just tend to catch more than a, not even a kennel to dog, but just dogs that live in a bigger pack because they do have their own dynamics. And I'm sure, I think I read a study, it's the same with women. Like even if you have a group of women working in an office, the alpha female, when she has her period, she will bring all the other

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (30:31)
Yeah.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (30:45)
females at work. I knew that like, dogs start syncing females start syncing even females in the same household, but I'd never knew from an alpha female point of view that that also happens in humans. So it just goes to show, that's just biology and layered on top the breed, layered on top the microplastics, layered on top, like, it just stacks up and stacks up.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (31:02)
Yeah. But also, yeah, we import when

we import semen from abroad, you know, it's costing up to 2000 pound, you know, by the time you pay for it and brought it over and everything. And then you have it put in and nothing, you know, it's not so bad when you're using one of your own stud dogs. But you put that into the equation as well. It's an expense. Anyone that says, you know, I'm going to get myself some mastiffs I'm going to make some money. You will not. Yeah. Yeah.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (31:27)
You just start laughing and you're like, okay, speak

to you in four years time.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (31:31)
And then like I you've got to

find the homes for them as well. And I know someone that I think, they had 13 puppies and I think six months later, they've still got something like nine of them. They didn't do health testing. And of course people didn't want them. So that's one thing, the public can change people's way that they breed. If members of the public...

will only buy health tested puppies, that will stop a lot of breeders, you know, not doing any tests. But you can speak to people that breed, waste of time doing hips and elbows and everything else, you know, don't need it, it's a complete waste of money. So you're never going to change that mindset.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (32:09)
No, no, I know Tracy's really active with your Instagram, which we'll put a link in the show notes So I know you have a really big following and I know you have wait lists, so I'm sure you,

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (32:19)
Yeah, we get a lot

of people that are interested, you know, the husband might be interested in a Mastiff, the wife's not sure. So we literally say, well, come and spend the afternoon or the morning with us and meet them in their true environment. Because you can all go to the show and see all the best dogs and everything. But we say, look, come to us, spend as long as you want. You know, don't wear clean clothes because you will go home absolutely covered in hair and slobber, as you know. And educate them.

And normally 99 % of the time when they leave, both of them want a mastiff. But then that's the problem. You know, they go on our waiting list, which is years now because we're just not having the numbers. You know, and once people have a mastiff, that tends to be the only dog they have. They stick with them because it's like living with another human being, to be honest. So, but it is just educating. That's the most important thing to us is, you know, getting the breed across. Because if we don't...

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (33:08)
Yeah.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (33:16)
I think in 10 years time, I think Mastiff, you'll be lucky. Certainly in the show ring, you will not see them because we're slowly losing all of our tickets when we show. we're going down and down. But even some of the shows like Blackpool, we always had good numbers up there. We lost tickets a couple of years ago. It's silly to me.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (33:26)
are you? Right, so your CCs are going down.

Well I think showing's

just got too expensive. It's just too expensive.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (33:42)
I think what's killed

showing for myself is social media. Because in the old days if you didn't like someone or you had something to say you either picked up the telephone and told them or you wrote them a letter. Now it's just too easy to put it all over Facebook. Yeah when we won best of breed at Crufts last year it was absolutely horrible on social media. All mainly from abroad.

Yeah, and it wasn't just the dog they were attacking, it's us. They didn't even know us, they accused us of cheating and everything. And it's like a hate campaign. And that is the problem. we just sort of shrug it off at the end of the day, we're used to it. But you can see a lot of people, why they get fed up with showing. And I know the Kennel Club have introduced different things about social media and you can be banned from showing, but nothing really happens.

And I think this is where it's a hobby at the end of the day. And think people forget that. It's just lucky there's no money involved because I hate to think how vile it would get then.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (34:34)
Yes.

I respect anyone that shows their dog because they're the only people that are willing to put their money where their mouth is. So they're willing to say, look, I'm here for you to assess my dog and I will have to take on the chin, whatever you think about it or not. And I'll read my critique and we'll go from there. most people just don't do that in life. They're not willing to voluntarily put themselves under assessment. So I res...

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (34:47)
Yeah.

Yep.

I think if

you're a true breeder, you know the faults of your dogs. Your dogs aren't perfect, you know what you want to improve, and that's what you strive for over the years. And that's why you do different breedings and stuff like that. If you weren't, you'd just keep knocking out puppies, knocking out puppies, knocking out puppies for money. But a true breeder will try and, every litter you have should be an improvement on what you bred before. That's the ultimate goal, I think.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (35:32)
Yeah, and it's hard to maintain consistency because the world is changing around you. So even like I've worked quite hard the last two, three years to use a lot of frozen deceased semen to get back a type, but...

because the type has changed, it's going to be really hard to maintain that type because I can't now go to another kennel that has a similar type because it doesn't exist. So even if you were doing amazing at one point of your dog breeding life, that won't last forever. It will change. So you're constantly trying to fight to get back to maintain that consistency. So even if you were smashing it out the park,

that you're probably not smashing it out the park 10 years later. It's really hard to maintain a real good consistency of dog. So yeah, just another challenge to add to the complexities of breeding dogs.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (36:22)
Yeah.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (36:25)
What do you most like about the Mastiffs? I know you said about the very human-like.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (36:30)
Yeah, I think it is the loyalty. They crave human companionship. They're not a nasty breed at all. They're not an aggressive breed or anything like that. if they feel there's a conflict or anything going on, will literally just, their size, they've just put themselves in front of you.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (36:46)
And they're a guarding breed aren't they? Is that what they're...

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (36:48)
They are, they were

originally they were a guarding breed. It's still there in the back of their brain somewhere. Like I say, if I, they've got two types of bark, their normal bark. And then there's a bark that literally goes through you. And literally I can be gardening and I can leave the wheelbarrow in the middle of the garden. And the dogs, cause it's not normally there. They just think they do not know what it is. And honestly, they stalk it. They crawl up to it.

and the bark is like, blimey, know, it's just a wheelbarrow, but if it's not normally there, you know, they would sort of put themselves between you and them and that danger of the wheelbarrow.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (37:28)
Yeah, that's very Bulldog-like as well. So I guess that's like the molasser. Is that what it's called? Yeah. Right.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (37:34)
Well, where it's come from, because it's the bull mastiff and

the mastiff. Just obviously a little bit of difference in size, isn't it?

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (37:43)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I don't need a dog any bigger than my Labrador now, so I'm like, no, yeah, the lab's big enough and she's small, so I don't...

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (37:45)
Thank

The child with Mastiff's do

think they're a lap dog as well. If you will allow them on the sofa as a puppy, you've made your bed to be honest. So you'll share it for the rest of your life.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (37:57)
no. Yeah, you

get your legs crushed and some.

so moving on to the quick fire round. So just a few questions for you, Steve. So the first one is, what's the most misunderstood thing about your breed?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (38:10)
Right.

I think people see their size and just think they're going to be aggressive. Literally when you go walking with the dogs, if you anybody with a small dog, they cross the road.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (38:24)
well yeah, they are a big dog and I guess it's, do you walk one at a time, two at a time, how?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (38:28)
Yes, because

the is if you take two males you could nearly be taking quarter of a tonne. Yeah we have actually qualified for the breeders group this year at Crufts which is the first time Mastiffs has ever done it so we'll be taking four of them in into the ring so that's going to be quite entertaining so especially I think it's going to be televised as well so yeah yeah

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (38:33)
Yeah.

you could end out on the outtakes or some reels of getting dragged around or

something silly happening. gosh, well, it'd be worth it. Right, next question. What do you feel is the toughest trait to breed for?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (38:53)
Yeah, sorry.

Type I think really at the end of the day because Mastiffs is losing their type so going by breed standard that's the hardest bit because obviously where people just keep throwing a couple of dogs together it's weakening the breed I personally think so.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (39:17)
but what specific aspects, what you see they get in like say taller, longer?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (39:21)
I

don't think they're getting the bulk. I think they're losing depth of chest and they're losing the bone and also movement as well is really because to get a hundred plus kilo dog to run around the ring, you know, it's very similar to humans. You know, you don't see a 30 stone sprinter do you at the Olympics? So that is one of the things we are losing is definitely is movement.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (39:42)
No.

I always feel the American a lot more showy in like the presentation is a real big thing in America when you're showing your dogs. So, and you said you feel that they might be a bit taller in leg. Do you think it's so they can keep that a bit more agility in that show environment?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (39:56)
Yeah.

think the trouble is it's like anything if you've got a lighter dog you know it's like Bertie that we've done all the winning with you know he was 92 kilos so for a male you know he wasn't big but he had a ring presence about him so when he walked into that ring he owned it his neck was stretched he was looking he was nosy and he was alert and that's the one thing that's what you all want in a show dog you want a showman and that's

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (40:17)
Yeah.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (40:29)
I say if you've got an overweight dog, too big, they're just going to plod in aren't they? So it's trying to get that balance right on a big looking dog, but not overweight.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (40:40)
Yeah, yeah, hard, yeah, hard balance. Okay, right, next question.

What's one essential trait for a breed expert?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (40:47)
I think you need to study pedigrees to sort of understand what you're introducing into your lines. Because like I say, the gene pool is small. So, like I say, for a pet dog is totally different to a show dog. You're looking for two different things. Like if we're giving a puppy to a home with children.

Obviously you want a totally different temperament. So it is getting the temperament right for me, which is the most important thing.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (41:17)
and what, so you can feel, you can understand temperament from a pedigree.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (41:23)
Well, you can because obviously there are some lines that are not nasty but they're sharper than other lines. wants that. So obviously you want to try and breed for temperament because of the size of the dog.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (41:36)
Yeah, okay. Yeah, understandable. Yeah, the bigger the dog. Well, I mean, that's the problem that the XL bullies coming to, wasn't it?

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (41:43)
Yeah, well this is where we're so lucky

Mastiffs haven't fallen into the wrong hands because if you imagine a Mastiff like the XL Bullies you you have got a whole lot of trouble on your hands, you know.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (41:54)
Well, I guess this is why the Cane Corso seems to be getting lined up as the XL bully fallback, doesn't it? I see there was some interviews on the TV the other day. But I mean, the temperament's totally different because, Cane Corso's our guardian, aren't they? Where the XL...

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (42:09)
Yeah, the job is all these

temperaments, you know, are introduced by humans at the end of the day, because if you looked at the XL Bully, if you look at the majority of the owners, and you know, that's what's done them the harm at the end of the day, you know, obviously, I think there is pit bull bred into them stuff. there is obviously a trait to be a bit nasty, but it's the same as the cane corso So it's

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (42:14)
Yep.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (42:33)
It's the owners that are portraying them to be something that are not cropping ears and pinning them up and just making them look sort of aggressive, aren't they?

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (42:41)
there's a reason why Staffordshire bull terrier doesn't come above your knee and there's a reason a bull terrier doesn't come above your knee. And basically the XL bullies are that and like 10x'd. So it was always gonna be a problem, not necessarily because of the temperament, because the nature of the dog and the size of the dog that it would then cause damage. I guess that's the disappointing thing is that you didn't have breeders correctly vetting their.

owners to for the owners to understand yeah you can't keep this dog up in a terraced house and not take it for a walk you need to actually exercise this dog, train it, engage it, give it enrichment and you'll probably be alright and like I've always said to people I never met a bad bully like they're a big powerful strong dog and there's a lot of people that couldn't handle the dog but the temperaments were always spot-on but

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (43:15)
Yeah. No. Yeah, but for me, the government

and the kennel club got it all wrong because that was a prime opportunity to try and sort dog breeding out. But to go and ban the breed, yes, maybe that's right, maybe that's wrong, but you had a prime opportunity.

try and tackle the issue which they just haven't done.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (43:41)
Yeah, but you

As you say, which is the people, it was us, we're the issue. even the Americans went, we really don't understand why you're having all these dog deaths. we just don't have that problem here. Even Holland went, what are you not doing to your dogs? But in Holland, they have to temperament test all their dogs and sort of go back, not the dog license, but when you buy a dog, you have to, a bit like the Kennel Club Good Citizens Award, but it's compulsory, you have to do it.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (43:45)
Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (44:09)
You have to teach your dog basic manners and not to be reactive. You have to leave it with a group of people it doesn't know and it not be reactive. It has to not react to loud noises and all this kind of stuff because yeah, if your dog basically listens to you, it's probably going to listen to you when you deem it to be doing something it shouldn't be doing. And I think that's the problem.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (44:28)
Yeah, because when we

showed our dogs in Geneva, Mastiffs were on the danger list and they had to be muzzled, asked out in public and whilst around the show. of course, we then had to teach our older dogs to have a muzzle on, which they thought they'd be punished. You we found nice soft leather ones and everything and stuff like that. But of course, you you're feeding them treats and they're looking like Hannibal Lecter. He got all this slobber caught up in it.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (44:36)
That's crazy.

Yep.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (44:54)
It made them look more vicious than they are.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (44:56)
perception, yeah, then the perception becomes really bad Just out of interest, so when you were showing abroad, what was it? You were allowed to take the muzzle off once you were in the show ring.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (45:06)
Yes, technically you're supposed to walk up to the ring and then just whip it off outside. when we parked in, because the car park was inside, one day we walked without the muzzle just to go into the hall, big exhibition hall, a like the NEC. But then on the other day there was people around, put the muzzle on. And anywhere in Geneva you had to have a muzzle on.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (45:25)
Well, I guess that's the reason why a dog wouldn't be popular in a country, isn't it? Because now you're gonna have to conform to all these extra rules and regulations. Yeah, yeah.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (45:25)
stopped.

It stopped most people showing there to be honest with those

types, there's a few dogs but some of the dogs over there which are aggressive over here didn't have to have it. So we just stayed in France because it was right on the French border. We just stayed in a hotel in France because it was nicer for the dogs.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (45:41)
it's crazy. Yeah, as say, it's the people, not the dog.

Yeah, yeah, no, I don't blame you. Okay, final question. If you had to describe breeding in one word, what would it be? Well, that's polite compared to most people, but yeah, brilliant.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (45:58)
Hard work. It is challenging,

but we keep going. You the knockbacks we've had, you know, most people give up, but we keep doing it because we strive just to try and improve the breed. So it's the best we can.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (46:09)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, your passion is no truer form than what you and Tracy have got, that's for sure.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (46:20)
Yeah, we certainly don't do it for money.

That's why I'd like the taxman to come and see me.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (46:24)
So you can waste some of his time. Yeah, like, yeah, okay, then I want to prove something to you lot. Come sit with me. Let's go through this.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (46:27)
yeah.

Yeah, well like I say, it's just showing

abroad, know, because the size of the van we got cost us an absolute fortune on the ferry and Euro star.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (46:40)
Yeah, yeah, there's not anything you do. Yeah, half-hearted without a doubt. Yeah, no, that's that's cheap. Half-hearted. You don't cut corners. there is no more you can do. That's why you are the winner of the Breed Mastery Award you were finalist for so many other categories because I don't see many if anyone trying harder for their breed than what you guys are doing for your Mastiffs So it's to be recognised and

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (46:43)
It's cheap.

That's the country.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (47:03)
applauded and to be acknowledged and yeah I just hope you carry you're doing until you're grey and old.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (47:04)
We appreciate that, thank you. yeah, we'll keep going. So like I say, all the girls are due in season

now, so we're any time, well, technically the end of March, but I think they're going to come in early, so we'll be seeing you.

Sara (Canine Family Planner) (47:18)
Good stuff, good

stuff. All right then, well, thank you for your time and yeah, we'll catch up soon. Thank you. Bye.

Steve (Womlu Mastiffs) (47:21)
No, thank you. Yep, keep up the good work. No problem. Thank you very much. All right. Cheers. Bye.