Is Fang from Harry Potter Actually a Great Dane? The Book vs Film Mystery

If you watched the Harry Potter films and came away convinced that Hagrid’s enormous, drooling dog Fang was a Mastiff, you were not imagining things.

But if you read the books and thought Fang sounded suspiciously like a Great Dane, you were not imagining that either.

This is one of those small Harry Potter details that becomes much more interesting once you are a giant-dog person.

In the books, Fang is a boarhound

The official Harry Potter Encyclopedia describes Fang as a giant boarhound: imposing to look at, devoted to Hagrid, extremely fond of putting his head on people’s laps and exceptionally talented at leaving drool behind.

That description also fits the Fang readers meet in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, where he is introduced as an enormous black boarhound who looks far fiercer than he really is.

So far, so clear.

The confusion starts with the word boarhound.

So is a boarhound actually a Great Dane?

Historically, “boarhound” was a functional description for large dogs used to hunt wild boar, rather than one perfectly fixed modern breed name.

But the Great Dane has a particularly strong connection with it.

The American Kennel Club’s history of the Great Dane traces the breed back to giant German boarhounds used for hunting in the 16th century. Modern dictionary definitions also commonly give the Great Dane as a principal example of a boarhound.

So it would be too neat to say that every dog ever called a boarhound must be a modern Great Dane.

But in the context of Fang, calling the book version Great Dane-type — and very reasonably a Great Dane — is well supported.

Which is where the films complicate everything.

Film Fang is a Neapolitan Mastiff

The Fang most people picture from the Harry Potter films has the heavy wrinkles, broad head and much more Mastiff-like build of a Neapolitan Mastiff.

So the visual answer and the literary answer are different.

Book Fang: an enormous black boarhound, closely associated with the Great Dane tradition.

Film Fang: portrayed as a Neapolitan Mastiff.

That is why searching “what breed is Fang?” can produce apparently contradictory answers. People are often answering two different versions of the same dog.

But which breed has Fang’s personality?

This is the much more entertaining question.

The official Harry Potter description of Fang is basically a checklist of qualities familiar to anyone who has lived with a giant companion dog.

He looks intimidating.

He is actually gentle.

He wants physical affection.

He rests his enormous head on people — a habit Dane owners will recognise from the famous Great Dane lean.

He drools.

And despite being attached to a man who routinely thinks dangerous creatures are charming, Fang himself would generally prefer not to participate in anything remotely alarming.

Great Dane owners may recognise a type.

The giant dog who looks capable of guarding a castle but needs emotional support because something moved unexpectedly in the garden is not exactly unknown to the breed.

Fang may be one of literature’s accidental Great Dane ambassadors

The films made the Neapolitan Mastiff version visually famous, so it is completely understandable that most viewers think of Fang as a Mastiff.

But the books give Great Dane people a very respectable claim on him — rather like the Danes who have found their way into film and television over the years.

And in some ways, book Fang feels remarkably Dane-like even beyond the historical boarhound connection: huge, affectionate, slobbery, devoted and not nearly as brave as his appearance might suggest.

Hagrid wanted a fearsome-looking companion.

What he appears to have got was an enormous dog who wanted cuddles and preferred other people to deal with the frightening bits — much like living with Great Dane drool in real life.

Which, frankly, sounds about right.