Sex for bulldogs

Fun, eh? 

A huge number of bulldogs are mated like this - and probably most of them in countries like the US where artificial insemination (AI) is more routine than it is in the UK due to the geographical distances and the fact that it is much easier to ship a syringe of semen than it is a whole dog. 

This is especially true for a the Bulldog whose physical shape so often prevents a natural mating. Even if it didn't, you'd have a tough job getting a Bulldog from one side of the States to the other  by anything other than a car. The breed is so susceptible to dying during air transit that many airlines have banned them. Most Bulldog bitches, therefore, have to endure this indignity - while Bulldog semen is also collected by human hand.

The Bulldog has just made the AKC Top 5 for the first time. It is a breed for which the average age of death in most half-decent surveys of the breed is  five years old - half the average of what most healthier breeds can manage. (In fact, the AKC figures probably reflect this necessary turnover to meet the demand.) 

It is a bloody disaster for these dogs.  Have a look at - and a listen to - this video of a Bulldog youngster in the US,  rather astonishingly sub-titled "Having Fun at the Yard".

Now will you please stop breeding them and buying them?

Everyone involved in the Bulldog business is guilty of causing unacceptable suffering - even if the dogs you produce personally are a bit better than this one. 

I was recently asked by an American dog person planning an outcross programme for one blighted breed why I was so against artificial insemination.  

The reason is that it circumvents natural sexual behaviour patterns that have developed as part and parcel that ensures survival of the fittest. 

“Human assistance not only tolerates but also encourages males that in nature would never stand a chance to mate,” say Johan and Edith Gallant, authors of SOS Dog: The Purebred Hobby Re-examined (now also available on Kindle in both English and German). “Of course such matings may produce the desired color, the chiseled head that one is after or improve on any of the external features described in the breed standard, but the chances that it is instrumental in improving mental stability and true canine behaviour is remote.

"[It] brings two individuals together that most likely would not mate under natural conditions, the offspring that they produce are in fact contrary to nature and improvement of the breed concerned. When we are faced in modern dogdom with an endless list of complications in canine reproductive behaviour and with general behavioural disorders, their origins can be found to a large extent in human-induced mating, which in many cases has been applied over consecutive generations."

In the wild, it is usually the females who choose their mates. This is certainly true for the wolf, with whom our dogs share a common ancestry. And as nature favours the fittest/most adaptable, the females choose the most able and – it has been shown – often the most genetically diverse (i.e less related) mate. This is not something that can always be ascertained from a co-efficient of inbreeding which gives only a statistical measure of relatedness. 

In reality, individuals can be much more or less genetically similar due to the genetic deck-shuffling that happens with every generation. It is thought, for instance, that female wolves are able to distinguish between two brothers - on paper identically related; in reality not. This may be a critical mechanism in ensuring the survival of closed, isolated populations in the wild - and also in dogs which are artificially isolated by us wishing to preserve individual breeds.

Of course, I’ve heard dog breeders maintain that alpha male wolves mate with their daughters, but this is rarely the case. That’s because female wolves do not come into oestrus until two years old and often do not raise their first litter until they are four or five. By this age, their father is very likely to have been deposed by a younger, stronger, unrelated successor from another pack who has challenged and won the right to reproduce.

Now dogs are not wolves, even if genetically so very similar. It is obvious by some bitches’ utterly flagrant flirting that they can be shameless hussies compared to wolves, who often pair for life. But, still, bitches often do show a preference and we should show some respect for this where we can - as, indeed, some enlightened breeders already do. The bitch may know something about the mate that you have chosen for them that makes him an unwise choice.  And, believe me, she does not care how many fancy titles he may have if she doesn’t think he cuts the mustard.

“Bitches don’t like breeding down to lesser dogs,” says Don Turnipseed, an American breeder of hunting Airedales who allows his bitches freedom of choice .  “The dogs have more sense than people in this case”.

Artificial insemination circumvents another of nature’s safeguards too – the demanding journey sperm has to embark on in order to be the one that fertilises the ovum; a journey that so efficiently weeds out the weaklings.  

Of course, there are occasions where AI is justified – particularly if is to bring in some new blood from a valuable line from another country. But it should always be done with great care and only when both parties have already proved that they can reproduce naturally – as, indeed, is the current sensible Kennel Club requirement.