As we all know the bulldog has been going downhill for at least a century. Robert Leighton wrote about how hard it was to breed them. In those days, the majority of bulldog bitches were able to whelp without Caesarians, but Leighton gives advice on what age the bitch should be bred to prevent dystocia.
A century has passed without any meaningful reform to the bulldog standards (at least in North America). Now, virtually no bitches whelp naturally. Most breedings are AI or done with racks. The dogs have major issues with elongated soft palates, and these dogs have a hard time breathing and cooling themselves. Their life expectancy is very poor. The bulldog’s life expectancy is about half that of a golden retriever’s. Their average life expectancy is 6.29 years.
Now, there are good bulldog breeders out there. There are really compassionate people who are putting health first with this breed. I respect those breeders.
However, the institutionalized fancy (at least in this country) is either ignoring this data or blasting away at it.
I was perusing bulldog health when I came upon a “Save the Bulldog” petition online. I was going to sign it, but then I read it.
No, this petition wasn’t about saving the bulldog. Not by a long shot.
It was about preserving the contrived and distorted bulldog standard.
That’s something that we probably don’t need to save. In fact, I’d say we shouldn’t save it at all. I think we need a massive standard revision for the bulldog.
But that’s not what the bulldog mandarins are about. They would rather their dogs live very short miserable lives than ever reform a thing. The standard defines what a bulldog is. They just can’t see it any other way.
If these people want to fight reform, I say let them. It’s not even worth arguing with them because they have accepted this standard’s validity as if it were some kind of theology. No amount of evidence will change their minds. And if you try to do so, they will go into little histrionic screeds that aren’t worth reading, unless you want to laugh.
I want to save the bulldog. Absolutely. But I want to save them from these people!
And yes, I’d definitely stand still if someone did that to me!
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The 19th century books I’ve been reading online all decry the bulldogs of their day as being distorted images of their forebears. And this is the late 1800s we’re talking about.
However, if even -those- dogs were healthier than the ones we have now, it is more than just a ‘short face’ problem, because nearly every bulldog photo I’ve seen and collected in those books has a very ‘typical’ bulldog face. The big difference I can see is in the rest of the body, generally. Especially in the oldest photo I have, which is from the 1880s but is most likely from a dog even earlier than that. (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v485/Pietoro/?action=tags¤t=bulldog)
The whelping problems have to do with the proportion of the body and pelvis in relation to the head. For too long ‘massive heads’ were selected to the exclusion of any other consideration, and it shows.
I think the problem with the bulldog is that it has an un-athletic, dwarfed body coupled with a short nose, not just that it has a short nose. Same goes for the Peke — a horrible combo of extremely thick hair, a squat unbalanced body, and flat face. All those factors work against the dog’s overall soundness when combined. But a Tibetan Spaniel, who has a pretty short nose too, doesn’t have the same ‘doubling up’ of every possible trait that could cause distress in a dog. Same goes for Boxers and Pugs and such… many breathe just fine. It’s people thinking it’s ‘normal’ for them to wheeze, and therefore breeding those affected dogs, and those show-types who use surgery to ‘fake’ a sound face that perpetuate problems.
In other words, yea, we have an exaggeration problem. We could ‘save the bulldog’ if that dysfunctional body type was changed to a more normal one, and we could most likely do it without altering the ‘typical head’ that bully breeders love. Wasn’t that what the goal of the ‘Olde English Bulldogge’ breed?
The pelvis and head proportions don’t work out at all for free whelping.
I think the original bulldog looked something like this:
http://bttbab.com/
Yeah, that’s what I said.
The modern bulldog has so many problem.
That website I sent you is really interesting. It’s by far the best resource I’ve found on farm bulldog history. These are the actual catch dogs of yore that everyone talks about.
Instead of saying ‘a dog earlier than that’ I meant to say ‘a type earlier than that’. In other words, if that dog was a considered typical in 1880, the ones before then had to look similar.
Pai- Totally OT but I have two images of the very early afghan hound imports on my blog you are welcome to put in your collection. Plus a better copy of the lying down Mackenzie hound.
http://demonpuppy.blogspot.com/2009/06/three-early-afghan-hounds.html
Oh cool, thanks!
I don’t want to get into too extended of a discussion on this, but the “big head, narrow pelvis” argument as to why bulldogs have difficulty whelping is mostly old wives tale.
Bulldog puppies are small compared to the size of the dam at birth, and unless she was way overfed during pregnancy, they will not be particularly big or wide. it’s impossible to guess at the eventual size of skull or width of chest in new born bulldogs. Unless they are from very exaggerated lines they are not proportionally that different from my toy fox terrier pups at birth.
Bulldog have not been intentionally bred in North America for narrow rears for, well, ever. Really broad rears are technically a fault but almost always forgiven if they are well muscled up and sound.
So why the problems?
—Poor overall physical condition of the dam
—primary uterine inertia
—excessive fluid in the uterus at time of delivery
—NOT given a chance to whelp
The last is key. A couple of years back I answered a panicked call on Labor Day from someone who had come home to find their bitch in labor three days before her scheduled section. She successfully whelped 6 live puppies and one stillborn with zero veterinary help. She was maybe 5-6 generations on both sides of scheduled c-sections. She was also a healthy, active young bitch with no airway or orthopedic issues who had been stubbornly refusing to eat and gain more than a few pounds during gestation.
Solution. Improve overall health and stamina. Promote fitness and avoid overfeeding. Allow bitches to try to free-whelp rather than scheduling c-sections. Select from more successful whelpers. Stay away from incorrect “fur toads”. Give precedence to more slowly developing dogs and lines.
Bulldogs are also seldom given a chance to breed naturally, they certainly are able if they are fit and have a good rear assembly. I recently helped someone breed a first time dam to a never before used stud. Funny and not exactly the ballet but they figured it out. American lines of bulldogs in general have a “pulse optional” view of breeding. Rumors of their libido lacking are pretty damn funny. Ask a reproductive specialty vet if you doubt me.
Not sure how the life span listed was compiled, but most of the show or performance bulldogs go 9-11 years, with more making it into their teens than they did 10-20 years back. But MOST bulldogs in the USA, because of their damned current popularity, are BYB or Puppymill bred and so are probably not being OFA’d, CERFed, PennHIPed etc…. My last litter was born when the dam was just shy of seven and in great shape per my vet. The litter was the result of a natural mating. She unfortunatly did develop an intra-uterine infection during the pregnancy and was sectioned and spayed as my vet felt pushing was too risky with what amounted to an abcess . She and her pups however thrived. I’ll find out next year if her daughter can free-whelp as she has passed her screening tests now.
Here’s the thing, there is a lot of room for variation within ANY breed standard. There are folks out there who could fuck up a cube ’cause it looked too boring and :square”, much less a breed of dog. I breed athletic, active dogs with longer skulls and necks, but they still do win in the show ring and also make good performance prospects. I HATE the “short as possible” phrase relating to bulldog noses in the current standard. BUT to be fair it DOES call for a strong well-arched neck, straight legs, moderate angulation, a nose that must be broad, well developed and with nostrils wide open. Movement in the US standard is never supposed to to be stilted or limited but “unrestrained, free and vigorous”.
The no necked, round-headed, unbalanced, dwarfy, crooked dogs who look like toads with fur, cannot move or breathe, are in fact antithetical to the written standard. And while I’d like to see it revised to emphasize health, remove wording that permits extremes and penalize any form of unsoundness, I have no great faith that it would count for much unless a hell of a lot of education of judges, vets, owners and the public gets done. Until popularity wanes, it’s a tough row to hoe.
Bulldogs have fallen far more victim to the whims of fad and fashion than any words on paper, which have been ignored to the detriment of health anyways
If you want a really interesting take on the bulldog, get a copy of Eno Meyer’s “The Bulldog” I love his illustrations, the dog he draws looks very functional.
Your breed, it seems, has suffered more than mine has from the whims and caprice of popularity.
BTW, you were who I had in mind when I said that some breeders were very concerned about health issues in the breed.
Trying to find the illustrations I had in mind on-line, no luck so far, And my scanner sucks…
Thankfully, for the breed, I’m not alone. Our Ambassador of Health program was originated by a couple of breeders in TX and the OFA Trachea study was the brain child of a New Jersey breeder. We’ve got good folks in Washington state, Oklahoma, Michigan, Indiana, Arizona and New York to name a few BUT none prolific breeders so well-bred pups from health- certified parents are hard to come by.
And the public has NO patience
Ah, the studies are from the UK and Denmark.
These don’t always correlate well to US populations of the same breeds. Different strengths and weaknesses on one side of the pond and the other
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Many breeders are afraid to free whelp due to having fingers pointed at them for taking a short cut in costs.
Most breeders c section for the fear of something going wrong, myself included.
Bulldogs pups are so small the size of them is not the problem but passing a water puppy is darn near impossible.
Most breeders don’t even attempt the free whelp so the numbers of c sections appear excessive. These are planned surgerys not emergency c sections.
A poorly bred bulldog could be plagued with a small trachea, skin problems, and hip dysplasia and live to 10 years of age and yet the golden, rottweiller, doberman etc will be diagnosed of cancer or die of a heart attack before the age of 4.
The only way out of this mess is health testing.
Bulldog breeders need to get their head out of the sand and pretend they just didn’t know that pet they sold to a loving family is crippled or requires palette surgery.
The excuse not to test because other bulldog breeders don’t test is a cop out. We all need to jump on the bandwagon and do the right thing.