Weighty Issues, Yet Again

I am slowly but surely losing my mind in the last few days before the Jamboree. I have already asked friends to please, please  smack me in the head with a hammer if I dream up another harebrained idea like “Hey, let’s invite a great big bunch of French Bulldog people to come and spend a weekend in the middle of nowhere”. Immediately afterwards, I of course mentioned how next year I’d like to combine the Jamboree with our Regional Specialty. Hammer, meet head – Head, meet Hammer.

Weight and the Canadian French Bulldog Breed Standard

A few people were rather irate at my recent entry discussing the issue of the Canadian French Bulldog Club’s apparent proposal to change the weight portion of the Canadian standard from a disqualification to a ‘fault’.

For the record, here’s the proposed changes that the Canadian Club has considered submitting:

Size

Preferred weight 9 – 14 kgs., size being in proportion with the weight but soundness not to be sacrificed for size.

For the record, the standard currently states:

Size
A lightweight class under 22 lb. (10 kg); heavyweight class, 22 lb. and not over 28 lb. (10-13 kg).

and under disqualifications is listed:

over 28 lb. (12.7 kg) in weight.

Clearly, this indicates that the Canadian National Club fully intends to change weight from a disqualification to a (weakly worded) fault.

Personally, I object to the insinuation that a larger dog equals a sounder dog. If this rational were true, we’d have to assume that Mastiffs are the most physically sound dog breed alive, with Chihuahuas the least sound and shortest lived. Anyone else see a problem with this theory?

At any rate, whether you’re pro standard change or con, you do have to wonder if, in this time of increased scrutiny on the breed standards of all purebred dogs, and Brachycephalic breeds in particular, the most pressing issue we need to address in our standard is the question of weight.

Rather than worry about weight, how about adopting the statement in the UK standard which specifies that

Dogs showing respiratory distress highly undesirable.

There’s a change to the standard that I could personally fully support.

In other news…

The Eastern Canada French Bulldog Club (with an area of operation including Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes) is now active, and actively seeking members. The new club website, at http://www.frenchbulldogscanada.com, should be up and running by the end of next week, if I haven’t collapsed from exhaustion before then. Either way, please come and check us out! But not today – today there’s nothing much there to see 😉