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Banerjee Bonhomme - Blue French Bulldog

A Not So Brief History of Blues in North America

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Thanks to the ever wonderfully informative Carol Hawke (of “Sonlit” French Bulldogs fame), comes this informative history of the ties between the rise of Blue French Bulldogs and North American French Bulldog breeders.

This is important, because an awful lot of relatively new French Bulldog people associate Blue French Bulldogs most closely with a handful of European French Bulldogs breeders, when in actual fact, Blues can most commonly be traced back to kennels in England, where a closed gene pool and limited range of colors led to the occasional occurrence of dilute fawn Frenchies, in pied, brindle or solidly marked patterns.

UK French Bulldog breeders had traditionally been rigorous about petting out their DQ (short form for ‘disqualified from showing’) colors, although a few slipped through the cracks when they were sold to North America, where they were used in breeding programs. This is how the lovely blue brindle pied male, Banerjee Bon Homme, ended up in the United States with Arlie Alford of Kennel Le Bull renown.

Frankie (as he was known) was sired by Wilcott Edison, a full litter brother to Wilcott Eureka (call name Yuri), who was imported into the USA by Pat Mentiply, of Pelshire French Bulldogs. Yuri was a lovely black masked, fawn pied dog, compact in size, and bred to Carol Hawke’s Cox’s Goodtime Allspice, he sired the littermates Ch Sonlit Europa and Ch Sonlit Daring Esprit (Lily and Duggie). Duggie, Lily and Yuri are all behind my own dogs, as is Ch Player Edwardpuck, sire of Maxine, the first (true) Black and Tan French Bulldog most modern fanciers had ever seen. In spite of this abundance of ‘rare’ color options running strongly through my pedigrees, we’ve never, as of yet, produced a blue French Bulldog, which only proves that, in my opinion, you have to work pretty hard at it to actually get one intentionally. And by ‘working hard’, I mean “Ignore everything else in your breeding program other than ‘what kinds of colors can I get?”, to which – no thanks.

That’s where  Carol’s blog (now gone) comes in.

Excerpt:

 

Blue Moon was a slate gray, blue French Bulldog male puppy bred by kennel Lebull, not Sonlit.  Blue Moon’s sire was Ch.Lebull’s Bart Simpson, a superb honey pied, black masked fawn dog whose dam was the exquisite brindle, National Specialty BOS bitch, Ch. Sonlit Europa (a littermate to my Duggie) and whose sire was the blue brindle pied import, Banerjee BonHomme.  Trophy was linebred on Wilcott and De La Parure breeding through his dam, Lebull’s Violacea.

“Trophy” or Blue Moon was dropped off one day by his breeder in a great hurry.  I quickly figured out WHY.  He, like all her dogs, had giardia at that time and she had to get them off the property until she found the cause.  (Which would to turn out to be the fecal matter left strewn over the property by the pet pigs and a few wild animals actually inherent to the area.)  Kennel Lebull, did, in fact, have kennels but they typically went unused.  I suspect the proprietor didn’t believe in them. Perhaps they were thought cruel and unnatural, sort of like braziers and panty hose.  

updated and reposted 

Poor Pixie, Color Controversy & Economics 101

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Poor Pixie. As I mentioned yesterday, Princess P doesn’t like her delicate toesies touching the bare floor. Put her on a bare floor and she flattens down, drops her ears and makes herself as teeny tiny as possible. We now put down a towel for her to start out on, and from there she seems to be willing to make forays out into bare floor land. It’s all about knowing she has a safe, no slip base to return to if she feels nervous. When we can’t take the unbearable sadness that is Pixie on the floor, one of us ends up picking her up and putting her on the couch for snuggle time. And so a Princess is born and raised…

Ms. Heart and Rumble, on the other hand, have taken to floor time like champs. It gives them a chance to bark-bark-bark in Tessa’s face, steal Dexter’s soccer ball, and run behind the couch. In other words, typical hellion puppy behaviour.

A full photo set is at the end of the post, or over on Flickr.

Color Controversy, Redux

A storm is brewing in French Bulldog show ring circles south of the border, and it’s all to do with ‘bad’ colors. A certain pioneering Blue French Bulldog breeder found herself summarily dumped from the FBDCA, and it’s served to reignite the controversy over Blue.

Is Blue mouse? Is mouse even a color? What color of mouse are we talking about here, exactly, and what kind? Field mouse? House mouse? Coffee mouse? It’s all terribly exciting, but I can’t help thinking it’s all a bit wrong headed, and that the timing for this is bad, bad, bad.

The UK pure bred dog fancy is in the middle of a world altering crisis. Standards are being forcibly re written, on brachycephalics in particular, and with no apparent logic or reason other than to pander to the general public. Little attention has been paid to real, workable schemes to correct health issues. If and when the BBC special that set off all of this brouhaha makes it onto American television, we have to wonder – will the same thing occur here? Will there be the same outcry? Will we all face a witch hunt in which we’re vilified as being the bastard children of Joseph Mengele (and that’s no exageration – there was a lot of references to pure bred dog breeds being an ‘experiment in eugenics’, with a clear inference that dog breeding=nazi experimentation)?

With all of this hanging over our heads, I can’t help thinking that we need to get our ducks in a row when it comes to cleaning up real, concrete, life threatening conditions — in other words, is this really the time to make the isssue of color one into some kind of sturm und drang, ‘oh, we’re all doomed’ soap opera? I kind of feel that it’s this kind of nit picking, fiddling while rome burns stuff that makes the general public feel we’re more concerned with the cosmetics than we are with the concrete.

If someone can show me a single, solitary, scientific study showing a link between ‘bad’ colors and bad genetics, I’ll be the first to jump into the fray. Until then, this is all just smoke and mirrors, and comes at a very bad time indeed.

Economic Crisis Solved!

And now, Natalie Portman and Rashid Jones present their solution to the Global Economic crisis, after which we do our own bit for world peace and financial stability.

See more Natalie Portman videos at Funny or Die

Our own contribution:

Are French Bulldog Colors Making You Blue?

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If things get slow on the French Bulldog mailing lists, there’s a sure fire way to perk things up – color! Any conversation about color is almost assured of devolving into a rousing bout of name calling and ‘so’s yer mother’, which certainly can pick things up on a dull day.

Blue French BulldogFor true excitement, however, we need to talk about the red headed step child of the French Bulldog world – Blue French Bulldogs. Few things can cause more heated exchanges of opinion than the topic of Blue (aka Mouse, aka Dilute, aka Devil Dogs).

Are they a DQ? ‘DQ’ is dog club speak for ‘disqualification’, in this case a disqualification based on color. The dog can still be registered with the AKC, and can still be bred from or bred to, but they cannot be shown. The issue varies with other National Clubs, but Blue or Mouse is not a recognized color by any national club that I’m aware of.

Should people be breeding them? If so, should they still be allowed to be club members?

Do you love them? Hate them? Love their coat colors, hate their yellowish eyes?

Is it time for the FBDCA to address the issue of Blue, once and for all?

Whatever your opinion on the subject, I’ve created a short survey intended to give me an over view of how the general public feels on the topic. I’ll be publishing the results publicly in the next day or two.

For those of you who think that Blues are starting to get a little bit boring, why not step up your game and go Plaid? That’s right, Plaid French Bulldogs are here!

Some background:

Plaid French BulldogPlaid French Bulldogs are the most super awesomest dogs alive today.

We found a rare colony of Plaid French Bulldogs living in an abandoned Chanel warehouse in France, and hired the best Frenchie wranglers in the world to round them up and bring them to North America.

We have devoted ourselves to breeding only the very finest in Plaid French Bulldogs. We select our dogs based on the depth of their pigment, the thickness of their plaid markings, and their exclusive ‘Greenie Glow’ eye color. You won’t find a better Plaidie anyplace in the world.

Genetics are important to us at Plaid French Bulldogs. Each one has been DNA certified as an authentic, 100% pure canine, with zero feline blood. We ensure our dogs are healthy by giving them annual flu shots. As well, we strive to remove genetic defects from our dogs by only breeding the ones that have four legs.

Plaid French Bulldogs require a specialized diet of Pate De Foie Gras, blue rare filet mignon, Mahi Mahi filets and Cherrystone Oysters on the half shell (hold the horseradish). Only the world’s most elite owners can afford to own a ‘Plaidie’.

Learn more here!