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"HISTORY OF THE BULLDOG AND BULLDOGS"
In the beginning of the 19th century the rapid decline of pure English Bulldogs alarmed a group of nostalgic upper class Englishmen. The English Bulldog had long been a symbol of British courage, indeed a symbol of the very fiber of the country that defeated Napoleon and built the world's greatest empire. They wanted to save this national symbol but did not necessarily want to save the actual fire breathing, hard to handle, working Bulldog. They gathered the last few remaining Bulldogs and crossed them to the tiny short nosed Pug. They created a new breed of dog that was smaller, squatter, shorter nosed, less athletic and more tractable than the original working English Bulldog. This trend toward tiny Bulldogs reached its peak around mid century. Some of these dogs got as small as 12 pounds. These miniature Bulldogs were the foundation stock for today's Boston Terrier and the French Bulldog. The erect ears found on these diminutive Bulldogs were achieved through the introduction of terrier blood.The super small Bulldogs did not fill the bill for the people interested in preserving the symbol of British courage.
They found a number of old time working Bulldogs in Spain and crossed them to the tiny Pug Bulldogs to get back some size and substance. The Spanish Bulldog of the time was actually descended from pure English stock brought to the Iberian peninsula originally by King Philip. These long legged Mediterranean Bulldogs weighed about 90 pounds and had muzzles about 2 1/2 inches long" tales are told of this bulldog comming to America with early spanish explorers".
The English preservationists were still bent on only creating a symbolic Bulldog not a working one so in their programs they selected dogs with the Pug's squatty stature and super short snout. Of course they did not advertise their creation as a new breed but simply continued to use the original name or a new nick name, the sour mug. They succeeded though in creating a wonderful pet and more importantly, a potent symbol that helped buoy the British spirits in the darkest hours of World War II. It seems more than just coincidence that Winston Churchill so closely resembled the sour mug. While the English Bulldog may no longer have the physical capacity to catch a bull or be a working guard dog, it still has the heart and soul of a true Bulldog.
Fortunately the real working English Bulldog did not actually disappear from the face of the Earth. When the English colonized the new world they brought their Bulldogs with them. In the deep south the colonists also released Eurasian wild boars. They found that the only way to catch wild hogs in the remote back country of the south was with their Bulldogs. Regional varieties flourished from the Carolinas to Florida. They are still there and are known under a variety of names such as, Old English White, White English, Swamp Bulldog, Hill Bulldog, Backwoods Bulldog, Country Bulldog and dozens of others. The first record of an English Bulldog in America was in the early 16th century when one of these formidable canines saved his master from a twelve foot long cougar in the colony of Georgia near what is now Savannah.
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COPYRIGHT© 2008-2012 BY BEN'S AMERICAN BULLDOGS-ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
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