The Dogo Argentino

The Dogo Argentino is a large white muscular dog that was breed for big game hunting in Argentina. The Dogo was breed from the now extinct Cordoba Fighting Dog along with a wide variety of other dogs starting in 1928 by Antonio Nores Martinez who was eighteen and his young brother Agustin seventeen. Antonio wanted to produce a dog that would be a great hunter, exhibit a willingness to protect its human companions, have steadfast bravery and be great with children.

The brothers started off with 10 Cordoba females and brought in the first contributing males. They would breed them until they got the desired characteristics they were seeking and than add a new breed. At one point in the program they had over 30 breeding females to take care of and feed, their parents, friends and townsfolks all helped out, if not for their help there would have been no way that these two young men, who were still in school could have ever continued.  Antonio who became a surgeon wrote the first breed standard for the Dogo Argentino using his medical knowledge to refine and improve the breed.

The Now Extinct Cordoba Fighting Dog.

The dogs that where used to create the Dogo Argentino were:

The Cordoba Fighting Dog

The Pointer for their keen sense of smell

The Boxer for its energy, liveliness and gentleness

The Great Dane for its size

The Bull Terrier for their fearlessness

The Bulldog for its boldness and broad chest 

The Irish Wolfhound for its Hunting Instincts

The Dogue de Bordeaux for its powerful jaws

The Great Pyrenees for its white coat

The Spanish Mastiff for its power

The Dogo Argentino is the realization of a dream that began over 85 years ago. The creation of this dog was a 50 year labor of love, that Antonio never got to fruition, he was murdered on a hunting trip by a man who wanted to rod him. At that point his brother Agustin took over full time on the project bringing it back from devastation after his brothers death and moving the headquarters for the breed from Cordoba to Esquel, in southern Argentina. Agustin the ambassador to Canada used his diplomatic ties to spread the Dogo worldwide. The Dogo Argentino is everything and more that Martinezs brothers set them out to be. 

"I still remember as if it were yesterday... the day when my brother Antonio told me for the first time his idea of creating a new breed of dog for big game, for which he was going to take advantage of the extraordinary braveness of the Fighting Dog of Cordoba. Mixing them with other breeds which would give them height, a good sense of smell, speed, hunting instinct and, more than anything else deprive them of that fighting eagerness against other dogs, which made them useless for pack hunting. A mix that would turn them into sociable dogs, capable of living in freedom, in families and on estates, keeping the great courage of the primitive breed, but applied to a useful and noble end; sport hunting and vermin control." - Agustin Nores Martinez, History Of The Dogo Argentino​

The Dogo Argentino took over 50 years of the Martinez brothers lives to produce. Breeders need to take a close look at that kind of devotion and hold themselves to the same kind of standards when breeding these magnificent animals. The goal of all breeder should be to make the breed the best that it can be.  

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Many US breeders have forgot the true purpose of the breed and onlt breed dogs for marketability. We as breeders need to preserve the true nature of these dogs, so that the Martinez brothers dream will not be lost on vanity. Breeder should always remember this when breeding and strive for the creation of the perfect Dogo.