War Bears

Yes but it would be a dog a little smaller than a bear and with the bears basic bone structure. Imagine a pitbullterrier the size of a small grizlybear.

Yes...but without the dogs basic understanding of "my side" and "them" which comes from a pack structure. Horses have a herd-thing that works the same way, I think.

would it be possible to breed dogs to get progressively bigger, eg Mastifs that one could ride?

You could breed dogs bigger, up to a point. Might be quite useful as beasts of burden, especially in rough terrain.
Riding them though...you might run into structural limitations before you hit horse size, and that would add a lot of required time to the breeding program. Also, I'm not sure the dogs backbone is as well suited to riding as a horses?
 
Murray Leinster IIRC, wrote a short story that had settlers on an alien planet (filled with very aggressive native fauna) using domesticated
bears kind of in a "dog" role, since some native animals were too big and pack-oriented
for dogs to deal with.
 

mojojojo

Gone Fishin'
Murray Leinster IIRC, wrote a short story that had settlers on an alien planet (filled with very aggressive native fauna) using domesticated
bears kind of in a "dog" role, since some native animals were too big and pack-oriented
for dogs to deal with.
OOOO, sounds interesting. Does anyone remember the name of that story?
 
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