Why Head Size Is Important To Maintaining Proper Bulldog Aesthetic

Why Head Size Is Important To Maintaining Proper Bulldog Aesthetic

Why Head Size is Important

Author: Mitch Wysong Mitch Wysong 15+ years of Experience Breeding Bulldogs Read Bio

Buddah Stud Review – Buddah = Big head + Clean Breathing

After 15 years breeding English Bulldogs we have learned a thing or two about the breed. We have learned what patience looks like. Diligent dedication to improving one’s craft – which in our case is our bloodlines. Steady improvement made by wise, informed decision making, generation after generation. The improvement of our Bruiser Bulldog genetics is made by stacking one health tested generation on another.

Looking back allows us to see change from what once was. One measurable progress we have made is developing bulldogs that breath clean but also look great. There is an incredible tension in this reality. On one side, you can easily breed an overdone, wrinkled bulldog with a nose flat as a pancake that – self admittedly tugs at my heartstrings. My experience kicks in and tells me that most likely this “overdone” look wont be able to breath. That’s the sad reality.

Most bulldogs with overdone faces suffer their entire lives. Yes, they are fun to look at on Instagram but can never be supported because it’s simply unethical to breed suffering into an animal.

Clean breathing bulldogs are most often a result of a slightly longer nose. A mere 1.5 inches can create enough space to pull the palate out of the larynx area of the throat and open the air passages. Couple these characteristics with a wider trachea and wide open nostrils and you have a bulldog bloodline that usually produces bulldogs that breathe well. Recessive genetics do pull some surprises, but more often than not this is the recipe that consistently creates great breathing English Bulldogs.

Easy Peezy – Right? Not so fast. One more factor that has to be considered is the look. English Bulldog lovers enjoy the breed because Bulldogs are squishy, smooshy faced cuties. As a life long English Bulldog diehard – I prefer not to produce boxer looking English Bulldogs. There is an unsaid tension between clean breathing bulldogs and maintaining that squishy face look. Pulling out the nose sometimes ruins the look if we are being honest with ourselves. This is where experience and the muti-generation decision making comes in.

With patience it turns out you can have both – great looking bulldogs and clean breathing bulldogs if one carefully selects for two characteristics: large heads (we are talking basketball heads) and clean breathing. Because a clean breathing bulldog normally has a slightly elongated nose, a large round head provides the aesthetic balance needed to maintain a great look and great health characteristics. The girth of the head balances out the length of the nose and creates a new reality – a squishy faced bulldog that breathes great. Now this balance is not easy and takes many generations to reduce variability – which is why another 15 years of bulldog breeding will make us even better breeders than we are today 🙂

Buddah really epitomizes this type of balance that we are trying to achieve with our bulldogs. A big head and long nose really is the ideal type of bulldog and provides a way to ethically produce great looking healthy bulldogs.

Have a great day!

Mitch