The Bulldog Sweet and Sour

One otherwise uneventful day last August, Carrboro, North Carolina, Police Captain John Butler got a call from his wife. "Rock ate a car," she said.

The Rock in question was Butler's three-year-old, 65 pound, red bulldog. The car was a blue 1996 Geo, weight undisclosed, being driven at the time by one of Butler's neighbors. Even though Rock had inflicted $1000 damage on the car with his teeth, Butler did not want people to get the wrong impression about bulldogs.

"They're big babies," he told the Chapel Hill Herald. "They love to be petted. They do stupid, entertaining things."

"These dogs were bred for bull-baiting in medieval times," Butler explained. "They would latch onto a bull's nose and hang on until the bull was exhausted."

Butler also assured the Herald that Rock had meant the car no harm.

"As soon as the guy stopped," said Butler, "Rock stopped chewing on the car because he thought he was going to get a ride. He's not a vicious dog."

Vicious? No. Optimistic? You got it.

How many people are going to open the door for a 65-pound dog with his teeth in the quarter panel? Bulldogs must certainly have a keener sense of the absurd than most people do.

With Baited Breath

As Butler correctly noted, the bulldog was bred originally to participate in bullbaiting, a strange and savage ritual that was popular in England from the 13th through the early 19th centuries. "Bulls were baited," according to the one Oxford historian, "By being tethered to a stake and then attacked by dogs, usually in succession, but sometimes all together. The dog would make for the bull's nose, often tearing off its ears or skin, while the bull would endeavor to toss the dog into the spectators. If the tethered animal broke loose, scenes of considerable violence ensued. "If the bull did not break free, one of the dogs invariably put a lip lock on the bull's muzzle and held on until the bull was immobilized."

Bullbaiting was one of the British national pastimes, "a sport the English much delight in; and not only the baser sort, but the greatest ladies," wrote John Houghton in 1694. And aside from its obvious sporting appeal, bullbaiting was considered necessary to drain the bull of poisoned blood and to tenderize its meat. The British, understand, took their beef seriously. By the 17th century beef was a staple in Britain, and a person was not to be considered a glutton, explained John Weemse of Scotland in 1632, if he ate merely three pounds of beef a day, often spit-roasted and noticeably underdone.

Those Mists of Time

The dogs used to tenderize British beef were a rugged lot. Their ancestry, like that of many breeds, contains more speculation than substance. Certain observers believe the bulldog was the parent of the mastiff. Others claim the bulldog resulted from the crosses between mastiffs and Dutch pug dogs. But, writes Colonel Bailey C. Hanes in The New Bulldog (Howell Book House), "It is now generally agreed that both the Mastiff and the Bulldog probably had a common origin in the Alaunt." The latter was defined in a dictionary published in 1632, says Hanes, "as being like a Mastiff and serving butchers to bring in fierce oxen to keep them in their stalls."

Whatever its origin, there is no speculation regarding the bulldog's courage, tenacity and virtual lack of pain receptors. As one writer has commented, "The British bulldog was the most valiant beast the Almighty (assisted by a number of sadistic breeders) had chosen to create." That dog, which the writer also described as a "devil incarnate," appeared to have outlived his usefulness when bullbaiting was finally outlawed in England in 1835. Fortunately, a number of devotees of this courageous dog decided that its other assets were worth preserving.

What Price Salvation?

The efforts to preserve the bulldog, some people argue, were a mixed blessing whose consequences did nothing for the breed's vitality. This argument was proposed as early as 1927 by Edward Ash in Dogs: Their History And Development. "When bull-baiting ended," wrote Ash, "the dog was bred for [the] 'fancy.' And characteristics desired at earlier times for fighting and baiting purposes were exaggerated so that the unfortunate dog became unhappily abnormal. In this translation state, huge, broad, ungainly heads were obtained, legs widely bowed were developed and frequently the dog was a cripple."

The bulldog's wrinkles, intended to channel the bull's blood away from the bulldog's eyes, were greatly overemphasized. The layback of the face, which allowed bulldogs to breath while they hung onto a bull's nose, was also exaggerated; and the loose skin on the body, designed to protect the dog's internal organs, grew even more loose.

The conditions described by Ash 70 years ago continue to shadow the bulldog today on both sides of the ocean. The British, of course, are more apt to take those conditions personally. "The bulldog of the 1800s was a potent symbol for our former imperial might," said Marcus Scriven in London's Daily Mail. "It was a brave fighter, with a longer muzzle than today's breed and possessed of a muscular agility second to none."

"Now, though, in what seems an inescapably apt metaphor for our decline, the British Bulldog is in dire trouble, its physique so damaged and distorted by inappropriate breeding that it has been reduced to a wheezing, loose-skinned parody of what it is meant to be. It has, in short, become an animal deserving pity, rather than one worthy of respect."

"Today's dog suffers eye problems, congenital heart conditions, dental and skin disorders and vertebrae deformities. Its shorter muzzle has lead to breathing difficulties, and the large head means pups have to be born by Caesarian section."

The Bottom Lines

To be sure, the bulldog is not everyone's plate of beef. If you are looking for a long-term relationship, you should realize that bulldogs are not famous for their longevity. The typical bulldog seldom lives beyond 10 years. Nor is the bully the dog for you if you want an obedient dog that will salute on command. Bullies are intelligent, but like many intelligent people, they are apt to trust their own intelligence as much as they do yours. This leads some people to say that bullies are stubborn. Finally, you should know that while they are alive, bulldogs are likely to occasion higher medical expenses than the average breed because bullies are prone to a number of afflictions.

But if you, like the poet Lord Byron, are looking for a dog possessing "Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, and all the Virtues of man without his Vices," the bully might just be your perfect union, Jack. And if you could not help but love a dog that will interrupt your afternoon nap by dropping a bone on your chest - then return with a roll of toilet paper still attached to the holder if you ignore him - your prayers have been answered.

More than a few people have found those attributes and then some in their bulldogs, and for all the challenges they present to their owners, bullies remain a popular breed. In 1995, the bulldog added 12,092 new registrations to the rolls of the American Kennel Club (AKC). This figure placed the bulldog 30th in terms of new registrations for the year among the 140 breeds then recognized by the AKC. Just about one out of every one hundred dogs registered that year was a bully, making this dog literally one in a hundred. Bulldog owners, of course, would add several zeroes to the second figure.

They would also, no doubt, second the opinion of the bulldog fancier who declared that "basking in their owner's love, [bullies] are the happiest creatures alive."

Bulldog owners, basking in their dogs' love and various sound effects, insist that if people were more like bulldogs, the world would be a better place. A rugged civility would reign in place of crabbiness; tenacity would dispatch timidity; loyalty would not be based on self-interest; people who snored would have a ready cover; kids would have a ready playmate; and honesty would be a virtue, not a policy.

 Be True to Your School

When last anyone counted, at least 38 institutions of higher learning - and countless institutions of lower and elementary learning as well - were known as "The Bulldogs." Many of those schools are represented by living, breathing, snuffling bulldog mascots. Perhaps the most famous is Uga (pronounced UH-gah), the mascot for the University of Georgia.

Uga V, the latest in a series of Ugas, made news last November when he tried to bite an Auburn wide receiver who had just caught a 21-yard pass in the Georgia end zone. As fortune would have it, the incident was recorded by a photographer covering the game. Not surprisingly, many Georgia fans wanted a copy. "Seeing him trying to take a bit of an Auburn player really warmed by heart," said Montgomery lawyer Randy James, who ordered a copy of the photo for Christmas.

James was one of 200 people who wanted to own that Kodak moment. Others included former Georgia Coach Vince Dooley and Georgia football trainers, who planned to hang a blowup in the training room. The image was named the Associated Press of Alabama's "Photo of the Month" for November, and, in case you did not hear, Georgia won the game, 56-49, in four overtimes.

Note: Since the original print publication of this article, Uga V was succeeded by his son, Uga VI. For the full scoop,

The Sum of Its Parts

When the Ceres [California] High School Class of 1995 asked local builder and sculptor Bruce Carty to create a statue of the school's bulldog mascot as its graduation gift, Carty sculpted a six-foot-high, three-ton concrete canine. A three-ton male canine, to be exact, and thereby hung a problem in some folks' eyes. One school board member asked that the certain parts of the dog be removed before school started in September.

Other officials said it was no big deal. Carty, for his part, was opposed to altering his work, which would have required taking a jackhammer to it.

"I'm totally against it," he said. "The contract calls for a bulldog. Besides, I don't think they want to be known as the school with no... uh, pride."

Carty won out, and life went on at Ceres High, whose seniors have added insouciance to insult by painting the bulldog's offending parts blue on occasion.