I support a few Bulldog charities and also work with many amazing Bulldog Breeders in the UK.
One of the things I am most passionate about is breeding healthier Bulldogs for the future generations so that we don't lose our beloved breed to bad health.
The Bulldog (along with many other breeds) has been badly bred in the past, but over the last 20 years there have been some amazing improvememnts made through selective breeding programmes and health testing breeding pairs. The results were clear this year at Crufts with the amazing standard of dogs there on show.
Such a gorgeous boy here!...
Unfortunately, there are still some pretty bad breeders out there too who just breed for money and don't care about the health of the puppies they produce, as long as they get their £2000 per puppy.
It is hard to fight against greed, so the best way to do this is to educate would be puppy buyers,so here I am putting myself out there as a bulldog breeder and explaining how it is from my perspective.
Most of the Bulldogs you will see in the media ARE NOT good specimens of the breed. There was a TV programme recently about the health of the Bulldog and I was hoping it would show the good breeders and the healthy Bulldogs that people should be looking for and warning against buying from unreputable breeders, but unfortunately the program focused on unhealthy Bulldogs.
As a result it seemed like a very one sided story and didn't show just how many amazing Bullies there are out there. It wanted to demoninse the breed. I guess that pulls in more viewers, but hey ho; here I am to tell the story from the other side!
As an ethical Bulldog Breeder, I strive to produce puppies that are an improvement on the parents. We always start by health testing the dogs BEFORE we decide to breed them to make sure we are giving the puppies the very best start that we can.
We then look for a complimentary Stud with health tests and also look at the inbreeding numbers to make sure they are not too closely related, although some breeders do line breeding which means they want a certain trait to continue, so they may choose a more closely related pair to acheive this to try and ensure the specific trait is carried on.
My Bullies are an athletic shape. they can run around a field like any other dog and can breath before, during and after!
Today, I will be assisting with a Dutch Health Test run in the UK for breathing. This involves walking the dog for 1km in under a specified period of time and the dog is then checked by a vet for breathing and scored as a pass or fail as a result.
We also have the UK breathing test which is called the BOAS test, however the dog is put into a chamber to test oxygen levels and some of the dogs get freaked out by this and fail the test due to panic, so the Dutch test is deemed as a more accurate result and in my opinion much better because of the 1km walking distance. A dog should be able to walk 1km easily, or else what kind of quality of life will it have?
So that is my day today, I will be out in the field (in the rain) working with my amazing Vet and a group of Bulldog breeders to continue the hard work that goes on every day in the Bulldog Breeding world.
I will post some pictures later on and let you know how we get on!
Love and Bullie snogs, @beautifulbullies xx
As a follower of @followforupvotes this post has been randomly selected and upvoted! Enjoy your upvote and have a great day!
Thank you@beautifulbullies for expressing your love and care to thsese lovely creatures. they are surely happy to have a person who looks after them with patience 🐶
Thank you @sywarla :)
What a wonderful post from a dedicated breeder. Your love for the breed is absolutely obvious.
I've bought two registered pups in my life. An English Springer that I was involved with long before birth and a Rottweiler. They didn't have the health standards then, but the Rottie had a 4 generation displaysia certification. Both were the result of careful checking on my part and the experience was incredibly good for both dogs.
Thanks for all you do for your doggies. It's important stuff, and I'm glad it's being done.
I am so pleased you did the research, so many people don't and then regret it afterwards. Thank you big tom! :)
Interesting!! I've never had a bulldog myself, but have come across a few and always love their nature.
Would you know much about French bulldogs? How similar is their breeding criteria to Bulldogs?
I don't know much about french bulldogs, but they have similar breeding issues due to the high value that the puppies fetch, so there are a LOT of bad breeders out there. The best thing I can advise is to look up the breeder and ask for references of previous puppy buyers, also make sure the parents are health tested :)
I can imagine :( Thanks for the advice, lovely!
Thank you for this great information @beautifulbullies and the lovely photos, It really saddens me how so many people mistreat dogs and use them only for their own gain. Puppy farms are such a huge problem globally.
It really is a huge global issue. At the moment, we have a lot of sick puppies being imported into the UK due to the high demand and they are being sold with false papers. some dying when they are taken home. It is cruel and very saddening :(
Your picture of you and your beautiful dog is fantastic. I love it. It is good to hear that you take such good care of your animals. Yes we need to advocate for these wonderful beings. They need all the care and exercise that we can give them for good health.
aww thank you! :) I do love my iccle fiddy :D Well I love all of my dogs, but fiddy thinks she is a parrot and is permanently stuck to my shoulder lol I agree, we have to fight for these precious souls as they cannot speak up for themselves. Somtimes I dispair at the human race, I really do!
I share your despair at times. We need to step up has humans and take care of all of mother earths creatures. I think we need to show people how to really take care of animals. :)
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How did you get on? Would be good to see some more photos :-)