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Posted by Fenland Joe
on December 12, 2008, 9:18 pm
Message modified by board administrator January 12, 2009, 12:46 pm
The American Bulldog holds a certain fascination for me, i love to research the breed in depth like no other breed. I hope to aquire myself with one or two dogs sometime in the future,but until that time i have enjoyed researching the breed and will continue to do so. I've been to a few AB shows here in the UK, i've seen some good dogs, others not so good. It's this enormous variation that should make the buyer do some serious research. The main thing i'm after is the AB in it's most true, original and untouched form, the true working bulldog, the truest continuation of the original Bulldog of old England. As most of us know John d Johnson started out with these original Bulldogs bred in the deep south of America for a hundred years or so, described by some as looking like an oversized, white pitbull type. JDJ desired a bigger, bullier dog so began to change what he had by adding English Bulldog blood and Bullmastiff blood in the form of two pups he aquired from David Leavitt and breeding them into his strain, giving us the Johnson type American Bulldog. I agree that JDJ showed the world the American Bulldog by registering his dogs and by creating a market for these bigger, bullier looking dogs, but i feel that this has been done at a serious price. By using EB blood and creating a bullier dog it has given modern breeders permission to breed from the bulliest to the bulliest and even in some cases adding more English Bulldog blood thus creating a dog that now often looks more like an English Bulldog than an athletic, tough working Bulldog meant to work cattle and hunt wild boar. The truth is this, it doesn't take a genius to see that the same thing that happened to the original Bulldog of England is happening right here before our very eyes with the American Bulldog. In the EB'S case it was pug blood that was added and the extreme breeding for shorter faces and wider fronts that led to the demise of the original English Bulldog. And now in 2008 more than a hundred years on,modern EB blood has been added with it's miriad of health issues, a list so long it would take me an hour to write them out, modern breeders continue to breed for wide fronts, short bodies and the most extreme squashed in faces,
with the
breed that many consider the nearest thing to the original Bulldog of England, the true working Bulldog. The truth is i love many Bully type AB'S but if we're talking about what the AB truely is and should be, it's not what these extreme Bully dogs are, there just heading in the wrong direction with regards to health and athleticism.
So we know that Extreme Bully types are the type that have been created for the buyers market,
then who are the breeders that have held onto the original dogs, the true working AB'S?
Some of the names and kennels to look out for to find the American Bulldog in it's most true, working original form :Scott, Hines,Williamson, Joshua
Kennels, White Knights, Rowlands Doggehouse(UK),Caldeys(UK),Laura Kennels, Dorsey, Jones-Sandvalley,Stout,Stover.
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