New freaks on the block: how to avoid buying the worst Bulldogs in the world

There is a sick trend in dogs that has now well and truly arrived in the UK. Welcome to a depraved new world where the game is to breed deformed, overdone bulldogs/bully types, usually in non-standard colours, then flog them for thousands of pounds under the guise that they're in some way special.

They're not. 

These are dogs often burdened with deformed skeletons and/or massive wrinkling, conceived by artificial insemination (AI) and born via C-section.The more extreme, the more "baddass" they are.

The breeders' Facebook pages are notable for back-slapping comments written by the barely literate  and they are usually strewn with 'on-fire' emojis 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥. Never mind that these dogs are so compromised by their physiques that if there was really anything on fire in the vicinity they'd be toast.

Until recently, these dogs were the domain of a handful of idiots and wannabe gangstas with Lilliputian genitals in the USA. Now they've arrived in the UK. And, worse, the Kennel Club is registering some of them.

This breeder has blocked me but these links should work for you. This one shows a very exaggerated puppy with a purple tongue.

And here is the dog's KC pedigree - totally legit (well in terms of it being a genuine KC pedigree).

The most successful breeders boast a slick front-of-house - websites blaring gangsta tunes and kennels that would be the envy of many. (One even has flat-screen TVs on their kennel walls.)  They talk about the dogs being "compact" and having "massive" bone, heads or muscle  like these are good things.

They are not.

You might look at these dogs and go WTF.  But there is a market that buys into it - mostly young, uneducated money that finds the marketing cool. These are people who have no deep-down knowledge of what a dog should be.

The dogs fall broadly into two camps. The first are extreme English-type Bulldogs - I've highlighted this one before, also KC-registered.

The second are exaggerated "pocket" American Bullies which actually often have half-decent heads and tails but whose shoulders are in the next county, cantilevered on to compressed, dwarfy frames. They usually have cropped ears (illegal in this country ) and are often very inbred to the point of looking not-quite-with-us.

The dogs are often sold to other wannabe-breeders who are tempted by the get-rich-quick promises. You too don't have to get a real job if you buy and pimp an extreme stud, wank him to exhaustion while he's still alive, dunk the filthy liqueur into a freezer in volume and flog it all over the world for a grand a time (and often a lot more) to people who have shit for brains.

Too strong? 

I'm just so angry that anyone in the UK could be stupid enough to breed and buy these dogs.

The breeders claim the dogs are healthy while doing few or no health tests. They claim they love them while condemning the animals they breed to a life beset with breathing problems, infected skin and painful joints. Most die young - but live on through frozen semen. Once they start to fail they are passed on for huge sums to unsuspecting buyers in other countries - often China.

Some of the new UK breeders are also behind a slew of new UK fertility clinics pitched at breeders of brachycephalic dogs offering cut-price procedures that are entirely focused on circumventing their dogs' desperate attempts to avoid passing on their genes.

A recent video on the Facebook page of one in the West Midlands showed intra-uterine insemination being done for what they called a "problematic" bitch (ie one that could not conceive by ordinary, non-surgical, AI) went viral on the veterinary groups. I understand that 100s of vets have signed a letter to the RCVS asking for action.

On October 1st, new legislation comes into force in the UK that will make it much harder for breeders to sell duff dogs. If you buy a dog that has not been health-tested and turns out to be suffering or dies from a breed-related problem, you can seek recourse in the courts and and help put these breeders out of business. Oh, and please let me know, too - I'd be happy to help.

Of course it would be better to not buy one in the first place.

Here's what to avoid

• Puppies that were conceived by artificial insemination or born by a C-section. You are perpetuating the breeding of dogs that nature is saying should not be bred.  

• Breeders whose premises have ornate metal gates with the name of their kennel welded into them. 

• Any breeder that offers you finance 

• A breeder whose website or Facebook page where the "rare" colour of the dog is mentioned in the first two sentences. Some colours come with health consequence and others do not, but it reveals the breeder's main focus (which is to fleece you of as much money as possible). 

• Breeders who insist their dogs are "quality" or "healthy" without providing solid proof in the form of health test results.  Ask what health tests have been done before you visit because the moment a little ball of wrinkle has been popped into your hands, man, you are lost.  Some will DNA-test for colour and some will also DNA-test for HUU because it's cheap and easy and makes them look like a good breeder.  One has posted this on his website which makes it look like they are health-focused - but there is zero mention of any tests other than those for colour.

Breeders who really care about the health of their Bulldogs/Frenchies/Pugs will be doing BOAS testing (which assesses how well the parents can breathe), heart-testing and spine-grading - and they will be boasting about them.

Ironically, puppies from health-tested stock are invariably cheaper than ones from the breeders I am highlighting here. 

• Do not be fobbed off with "vet-checked" - all a vet can check is that they're not actually dying at the point of being checked. It is meaningless in terms of future health. 

•  Don't be impressed by an expensive-sounding puppy pack. It's a marketing tool. 

• Any UK breeder that displays pictures of dogs with cropped ears. Ear-cropping has been illegal in England since 1899.

• Breeders whose social media sites feature a lot of these 🔥🔥🔥,  👑👑👑, 💣💣💣🤑🤑🤑, 💰💰💰 or where anyone calls the dogs "sick" meaning great.

• Kennel names that include misspelled words: eg deziner, bullz or bullyz. 

Feel free to add your own below!

Further reading:

Warning:don't buy into the designer Bulldog bullshit.html