What happened to the bulldogs, when did the ADBA change its standard????????????

It seems like they want dogs that can win a treadmill race. The fact is the dogs traditional work wasn't just straight ahead. It was also backwards and side to side. I feel a good judge makes his mind up when a dog is on the move. All of mine have at least a slight cowhock thanks to dear ole dad. One so much so I took him to a show just to get him off the chain. His sisters have taken best female and best of show. I could almost see the wheels turning in the judges head. Once they saw these bitches move is when they made up there mind. This is the key to me personally. Looking for lines is a slippery slope. Just look at what it has done for gsds, a once vigorous working dog reduced to hip problems. I like what one poster quoted a judge as saying. Something about picking the one he would bet his money on. It is about the total dog not just how they look standing still. On a side note back when I did dumb shit the best wrestler I've seen was cow hocked. What most consider faults may in fact have been advantages. You know like bowed front ends, long bodies or cow hocks.

 

I don't think the ADBA has changed its standard, I think that new breeders of show quality dogs have.

Without the old ways the breed is doomed to be what we see at the pretty dog shows but maybe thats what the public image should be?

No matter the cost alot of true breeders will continue to breed dogs for performance and not for looks, this is a given. When I see showdogs I do not think that they are the APBT as they are not, maybe a name change is in order, how about the ASBT? They could advertise them as the new breed of show dogs and maybe even compete in the big ring someday!!!

NGK

 

First off, the old judges who know dogs are becoming rare and the people replacing them are non dogmen. I don't know all of them but the three new ones in the last two years I have met or known on a personal level are idiots and I would never consider them a dog man. There are judges that are good and I respect them to the fullest. I.E. Dodge, Hammonds, Daly, the well dressed Mexican Guy with the hats and a few more but I will not mention a Greenwood because they have no idea of the standard and Ralph would fall out if he saw the dogs his family picks. That doesn't help at all when the owners of the ADBA don't know what a good dog looks like. Hell I won with a blue dog that weighed in over 79lbs over a real bulldog that had great conformation; at that time I had no idea of what a real bulldog with papers, seen bulldogs but didn't know until I got schooled years back.

Secondly I agree lots of these winners are fraile as hell, when my female shows more masculinity than a male there is a problem. I see a lot of these dogs especially in the fun class because you are in there next to males and females and usually these are the proudest owners because we are doing it for bragging rights not ribbons or points. Those classes give you a better idea of your competition and quality of the dogs at the show. The breeding of these dogs are the problems IMO. They breed to tight for one that I see all the time, they are not breeding for traits or phyiscal qualities that matter but pedigrees and many have lost sight of the dogs but rather have sighted in on papers as bragging rights instead of the dog itself or they breed for profit. The bad shows started to turned about 5 - 10 years ago from what I know and hear. Basically when people went far underground with bulldogs the ADBA suffered the quality of people known as dogmen and dogwomen! I don't fight dogs only because I have kids and can't go to jail but there isn't a dog on my yard that doesn't earn its keep! They are coon, possum, ground hog, rabbit, and fox killing machines! I will always keep bulldogs and hopefully I keep the breed true as the law will allow without putting handcuffs on me.

Thirdly is the conditioning of dogs! I see overweight or underweight dogs from vets to newbies. It makes me wonder if they even give a poop to read and work for their dogs to be physically healthly no wonder I hear of dogs dieing from heat stroke and freezing - WTF. I never seen anything of that sort and my weather goes extreme from 100 plus to 0 plus.

The ADBA is kinda of like our government, full of idiots who think they are doing something but they are doing at all in the end to benefit the greater good of the dogs.

There is a new breed of dogman that is barely alive, life support at best. We are still out there and still fighting for these dogs. Not all of us will forget nor will be suckered in by fame, money or pedigrees.