The Sad Case of the French Bulldog
Go back to Newfoundland, Labrador retriever—you were never really from Labrador—because for the first time in over 30 years there’s a new favorite dog in America. The French bulldog, beloved of Hugh Jackman, Madonna, and Lady Gaga, is the new market-leading dog breed in America.
The French bulldog is a combination of the English toy bulldog and the Parisian ratter. It’s a rare example of British-French intimacy.
The bulldog is so-named because its original job was in bull-baiting, a blood sport popular in London for two centuries until people realized that it was cruel to watch dogs slowly immobilize a bull that was tied to a stake. Bulldogs were trained to taunt and ideally clamp their teeth down on the snout of a bull that was enraged before the event with a nose blown full of pepper. Bull-baiting is considered to be an early form of Twitter.
After the sport of bull-baiting was banned in 1835, bulldogs were miniaturized, and their ferocious nature tenderized. They soon found new work as accessories for sex workers in the Montmartre district of Paris, then as accessories for aristocrats who wished they were sex workers.
Today, French bulldogs appeal to those who prefer their pets to resemble humans in a Grinch-Who-Stole-Christmas kinda way. They’re the top dogs of Instagram, signifiers of the sophisticated canine taste of Brand You. French bulldogs, comical, friendly, and needing little exercise, “offer a lot in a small package.” They’re easy, portable, wash and wear dogs that are perfect for apartment dwellers. Aficionados who don’t want to draw attention to the bull in their dogs, refer to them as Frenchies.
If someone had bothered to ask a French bulldog if it wanted to be America’s most popular breed, surely it would have said,
“Casse-toi. Je suis français!”
“Piss off, I’m French.”
But nobody is listening to the French bulldog that, if you look closely will notice is drooling as it’s struggling to breathe. The breed has become a coveted target of theft, the motive for Lady Gaga’s dog-walker attack, and has even been linked to a breeder’s murder.
Puppy mills are churning out French bulldogs like fast food croissants, feeding a global pet industry that Bloomberg estimates will reach nearly half a trillion dollars by 2030. Some are willing to pay extra for features such as hair of a different colour or texture, but all French bulldogs have the perked-up ears and big attentive eyes that make them look like what we all want in life: someone who is perpetually interested in us.
Imagine that we as humans decided that having a deviated septum is a desirable nose feature and sporting flaps of skin is a good look for the beach. So it is with French bulldogs whose flat faces make them especially prone to breathing difficulties, and their foldy skin to dermatitis. A study conducted on the breed found that 72% had at least one of 16 common health problems that aside from respiratory difficulties include heart issues, heat sensitivity, and chronic diarrhea. If you have a French bulldog and can afford it, it’s a good idea keep it in a wine cellar.
The country with the tallest people in the world must have an aversion to things bred to be squat, because it’s spearheading a movement to get the French bulldog banned. The Netherlands has already banned the domestic breeding of French bulldogs and has proposed a ban on importing, selling, owning, and even promoting French bulldogs in ads and social media.
Norway has also banned the breeding of bulldogs, and the UK is considering a similar ban. No such ban is in the works in America, however, the place where we expect cute to be pricey, painful, and short-lived.
French bulldogs weren’t built to last
https://www.royalfrenchel.com/common-french-bulldog-health-problems/
