French Bulldog – Best of Breed
Thank You Francis Berg for letting us
drop in um French bulldogs are not
necessarily what ya will associate
though a bit about your history and well
our very first breed were Great Danes
then I don’t know why really we bought
ourselves a giant announce a bitch I
said to Jack at the time oh they’ll
never take the place of the Great Danes
but they took over somehow and you know
we were very successful with them so
successful indeed yes yeah across the
best-in-show yes yeah very proud of that
very proud um so how exactly have French
bulldogs go well that’s funny we were
very very friendly with a young man
called Tom Kentish we lived nearby and
he started with French bulldogs and we
absolutely loved them and we got one of
his french bulldog puppies and that was
30 years ago now and I’ve always had
them bred litters but they were always
on a different day but we’ve got older
now we’ve decided to downsize and what
was it that attracted you to read
fantastic personalities great family
dogs I wouldn’t say they’re the best
guard dogs in the world
they’re quite welcoming you know come in
everybody but they do something that
makes you laugh every day guaranteed and
I love the look of them I love that
squashed face now a few things going on
in French polo at the moment one of
which is the issue of color breeders
would like a change to the standard to
clarify yeah you explain a bit further
yeah
at the moment the clubs have got
together and there is a motion to accept
what is called the thorn pied you know
it’s the white background but with form
patches but it’s the blues Black and
Tans
chocolates that really are just a no-no
years ago apparently one or two blues
cropped up but breeders you know passed
them on as pets with no papers not to be
bred from but of course I suppose one or
two have cropped up having
been bought for mega money and deserve
perhaps a branding issue these strange
colors are being suggested as as rare
colors absolute rather than incorrect
absolutely and the the problem I think
one a big problem is the fact that the
Kennel Club do register them although
they’re unrecognized color they register
them so that’s really a seal of approval
yeah and the French Bulldog some years
ago was was incredibly popular obviously
in France can you explain to us its
original purpose they came down from the
bulldog the little small ones and they
say they were around Nottingham with
lace makers and they you know that trade
but when the Industrial Revolution came
and machines took over a lot of those
people went to France to continue their
work and took these little dogs with
them right and then some of them had the
prickers and the French really took onto
that and that was the French Bulldog and
it’s always said that fashion comes back
around and the Frenchie somewhat proves
that and back in the late 1800s the
French Bulldog and we’re its
predecessors in France were incredibly
popular yeah the breed however became
fairly unpopular again but just in the
last ten years
explosion yeah there were only 350
registers in 2004 in 2013 just shy of
7,000 that I thought you can’t believe
it can you know and we’re 3/4 of the way
through 2014 and there are more
registered now than they were in the
whole of last year is that even healthy
it’s it’s not good for the breed it’s a
shame a lot of them are good bred by you
know decent breeders because they are
you can see why they’re popular they’re
so lovely to live with such
personalities but we have had an influx
of whole litters being brought into the
country from Eastern Europe under age
some of them I know some of them have
had to end up going into quarantine
puppy buyers should be patient I know
it’s difficult because when we wanted
our very first dog I had to have it
yesterday so I do understand
but you’re not going to find one round
the corner on the date that you think
you want it yeah so what is it you look
for in a french bulldog puppy well the
parents are important and heads are
important the first thing you look at on
a dog of any breed is the head they’ve
got to be cobby puppies they’re lumpy a
lumpy breed I know that has hands a
funny word to use but they have that
slight roach they should be short with
good bone although they’re fairly small
they’re quite a hefty breed I like to
watch them running around I start
watching them from five six weeks
onwards and I’ve usually got a pretty
good eye
you
