English Bulldog History
As I've mentioned in other places on this site, my English Bulldog history is long and distinguished.
It can be traced back with certainty to 17th Century England but there is a legend that's been handed down that some of my distant ancestors went to Rome to fight with the gladiators in the arenas.
The picture shows some of my many times great grandparents fighting with a bull. You can see crowds of spectators on the balconies in the background.
During the 1600s in England people in general didn't really understand that using one animal to torment another was cruelty of the worst kind. My ancestors were brave dogs who were trained to bait bulls and bears. The poor bulls and bears were tied up to a pole, which was in the middle of a pit. The dogs were then let into the pit to fight with the other animal.
The bulls had big horns and the bears had enormous claws and huge teeth. If the dogs wanted to survive they had to bite hard and hold on tight. They would try to suffocate the bigger animal whilst at the same time trying to avoid being trampled or torn to pieces.
The picture on the right shows my 27 times great uncle Henry fighting for his life with a tethered bear. Poor Henry suffered terrible wounds from the bear's claws and died about 2 hours after the end of the fight.
In some cases, the bulls were going to be slaughtered for meat but popular opinion at the time said that unless the bull was baited before it was killed then the meat was not as tender. The poor animal was the victim of all kinds of cruel treatment, such as having pepper put up it's nose to make it mad.
The blood thirsty spectators surrounded the pit and took wagers as to whether the dogs or the bull (or the bear) would die first. Thankfully, this terrible blood sport, which caused much pain and suffering, became illegal in 1835.
Meanwhile, in North America, some of our cousins were being used to round up wild bulls. They were trained to grab hold of the bull's nose and keep hold of it so that a man could get a rope around the bull.
This in part is how we came by our family name of English Bulldog History tells us that when bull baiting was outlawed people still wanted to have a family-friendly bulldog, so breeders began to work on a line of more friendly and less aggressive dogs. They crossed the original Old English Bulldogs with Pugs, who were smaller and more friendly until we lost all our aggressive traits and became the soppy and indolent dogs that we are today.
It wasn't that our ancestors were bad dogs, it was simply that they didn't know any better. Responsible breeders could see through the fierce exterior to the friendly and loving dog hidden inside.
By careful breeding they have wiped out the fierce and unpleasant desire to kill another animal and give us the friendly temperament that we have today.
As you can see in this last picture, my 10 times great grandparents were a beautiful couple.
