Puddleducks

I've kept very quiet of late regarding the rantings of Ms Harrison, but she's off again on her recent blog and I think it's about time someone stood up to her total drivel

She starts this particular entry with a photo of a Bulldog along side the photo of what looks like a boxer/stafford cross - For pity's sake - if I wanted a Boxer/Stafford cross I'd buy a blooming Boxer/stafford cross, in reality I want a bulldog and I still find it absolutely amazing that apart from the fact that the photo used is so totally unflattering it could be any bulldog in the world, these people still insist that the bulldog has changed so much that he's now on deaths door.

There's two things I'd like to point out here

Firstly: Take a look at the following two photos

If I told you there was over 100 years between these images would you still think the breed had changed beyond recognition as Ms Harrison would have us believe?

And secondly as the temperature outside today hits over 25 degrees (yes I know it's the 1st October but someone forgot to tell the weather) I have a kennel full of bulldogs who far from being shut away in a darkened air conditions room are all out sunning themselves and making the most of this unprecedented heat wave without a care between them. No they haven't been walked today, but no dog should be walked in this for the same reason you won't find me trecking for miles in extreme temperatures. The dogs we have here right now are at no more risk of overheating than any other dog of any other breed.

However, this whole cross breed malarkey has got to stop, our Face Book page was recently hijacked buy a bunch of cross breeders and apart from the fact that the people are not very nice I'm still very much a firm believer in the fact that the only reason why most of these people cross their bulldogs is simply for money - face it, put a bulldog male to a stafford bitch and you've got something you can sell as "a healthy alternative" to the unsuspecting public who truly believe they're getting a bulldog, with a far less chance of having to spend out on a c-section AND no kennel club rules which will limit how often the bitch can be bred from. Two years down the line we're getting the calls from really upset people who own what they thought was a bulldog that is now trying to bite them at every opportunity it gets. The bulldog was a nasty character and I for one don't really want to be on the receiving end of a so called "Olde Tyme" because some money grabbing thug wanted to make a quick buck and has absolutely no intention of standing by his creations. How many times has a new cross breed popped up? None of which have ever, or will ever go the distance and still be around as a breed in 150 years time!

Bringing in the mad ravings of a certain Ms Milne (who I see has gone all double barrelled on us), I will give give Ms Harrison credit for sticking up for the dog show - take away the only thing between indiscriminate breeding and the breed standard and my job will become a living hell, trying to work out what's a bulldog and what's verging on a Pit Bull. It seems to me that when someone's views are so strong and so misguided that they can't see anyone elses opinion as an option they certainly should not be put in charge of a TV show - maybe you'd like to interview me? Or visit the rescue kennel? I'm not ashamed to say that there is probably no other place in the country that sees such a wide variety of this breed, we probably see every single problem that could possibly be thrown at them and yet almost every single dog here enjoys a long daily walk through the woods and the majority of vet treatment is spent putting right the neglect of the human that owned it before we got it. I'm not denying there's problems, but breed anything to anything and there's going to be a risk of problems - that's the law of genetics. Maybe you should also actually speak to someone on the breed council too - there seems to be a lot of speculation being banded about as to what the breed council are actually doing - but as someone that attends almost every breed council meeting and supplies statistics to their health committee it is very frustrating when the good work is being ignored because it makes more sense to pretend that no one cares.

So lets concluded in the same way as Ms Harrison:

Quote "by suggesting that the answer to the KC bulldog was an outcross to a less conformationally-extreme breed. But of course this has already been done by those ahead of the game, eg: the Leavitt Bulldog (above). So how about the KC de-registering the Bulldog and embracing this healthier phenotype instead?
Yeah, I thought not... " Unquote
a) I don't want a Stafford look-a-like, the UK is over-run with unwanted staffords b) Why not acknowledge the good work being done by the Breed Council and stop quoting outdated propaganda that no longer applies to most bulldogs and c) As the wife of someone in a wheelchair, we got a bulldog to suit our life style oh and d) stop encouraging unscrupulous breeding by people with no care or control over their actions - can you do that? Yeah, I thought not ......