Bulldog

Overview

The Bulldog was created in medieval England for bull-baiting, and its ancestors were selected for huge jaws and a high pain threshold. When England banned blood sports in 1835 the breed lost its job and nearly died out, so admirers spent decades reworking it into a companion, refining its contours and breeding away the aggression. That reshaping came at a documented cost: a study of 2,662 English Bulldogs found 2.04 times the odds of being diagnosed with at least one disorder compared with other dogs, with raised odds for 24 of 43 specific disorders, and its authors called for immediate redefinition of the breed toward a moderate conformation. A separate survey of 102 breeding Bulldogs found one paternal haplotype in 93% of dogs. None of this makes the Bulldog a bad dog, and it is genuinely docile and fond of children, but it is a dog that will need active medical management.

Quick Facts

History

The rescue effort produced the first written breed standard for any dog. In 1865 Samuel Wickens published a set of points for the Bulldog under the pen name Philo-Kuon, a template meant to steer the animal toward the parlor. A second group formed The Bulldog Club in March 1875, issued its own standard that May, held the first Bulldog-only show the same year, and incorporated in 1894, making it the oldest single-breed kennel club in the world. The last recorded bull baiting in England took place in 1837, so the men writing those standards were describing a dog whose job had been gone for a generation.

Fun Facts