Movement is pivotal to understanding overall balance of the dog. I look at movement seriously when judging. Anybody can place a dog to look pretty for an overall look but that same picture perfect dog can 'fall apart' when it takes those steps down and back. I can place a dogs legs nice and wide but if the dog converges in the front while moving, you can tell the width of chest is missing or the elbows are too loose. If you get a duck waddler, tail moves side to side but the legs move straight, the rear is incorrectly built and most likely sickle hocked. A dog that short steps in the rear is missing angulation....and so on and so on....verdict movement reveals things that stacking can hide.....I have seen spectacular dogs fall completely apart a few steps in.....I am a huge promoter of breeders posting moving videos of each of their stud dogs so a long distance interest can judge their choices adequately.

If the dog can move correctly then it is a good indication that the dog is structually correct.
In the front they should move as they stand "square" and not toe in and certainly not paddle. In the back they should have the true Bulldog roll.

I cannot stand a bad mover at all!

There was a statement made (by a breeder judge) to a small group of us at a club function that they felt movement was just not important. If the dog could get from point A to point B that was all that mattered. They went on to say that if you were to find a proper moving bulldog you either found gold or it wouldn't be conformationally correct. This concerned me as one of the target recipients to the statment was a new couple to showing and I dont want them to feel its ok to just write off that part of the dog.


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In thinking about this more, at the very least, the dog should be able to move without lameness. I don't think anyone would debate that.
Now, just like any feature, some dogs excell and some dogs are merely adequate.
We assume that a dog standing still looking beautiful will have fabulous movement. This is not always the case. In this instance, unless the dog is lame, you have to reward the dog standing still and while you don't want to say movement does not matter, like I said, if it is not lame, I would not mark down the dog just because I was not dazzled by it's movement. So, in this instance, movement would become secondary to conformation and the point scale allows for this. Now, if an equally good dog standing next to him dazzled me with movement, absolutely would give that dog the edge. Remember, I said as long as it was not lame.
A beautiful moving dog that was lacking in type would not beat a superb specimen standing still under me, provided the dog that wasn't a great mover was not lame.
e

"There was a statement made (by a breeder judge) to a small group of us at a club function that they felt movement was just not important. If the dog could get from point A to point B that was all that mattered. They went on to say that if you were to find a proper moving bulldog you either found gold or it wouldn't be conformationally correct. This concerned me as one of the target recipients to the statment was a new couple to showing and I dont want them to feel its ok to just write off that part of the dog".

email the name of that judge in private so I remember not to show to them. Yikes!

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"I have always believed movement to very important because like you said, its an indicator of overall soundness and I believe that it needs to move well to be conformationally correct. That doesnt mean that I couldnt and wouldnt forgive what I would personally consider to be minor faults in the movement if the rest of the package was nice but its one of the first things I look at besides the overall profile".

Well, thruthfully, a dog can be a good mover and still not be a good bulldog. The trick is to combine the two things.

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"If you have examples that you could send me privately I would appreciate it to see how my mind's eye footage compares".

Some day if we are at the same show...

e

roll to me is the movement of the skin over the middle of the body.
The whole tail thing is a concept introduced in the movement video and I don't really agree it is necessary for proper movement. Some dogs have that tail movement that are lousy movers. Some good movers do not exhibit that tail side-to-side thing.

I have been around a few conversations lately on movement and one conversation in general didn't sit well with me and has me wanting to delve more into the subject to see how others feel and if I am way off base in my understanding.

There was a statement made (by a breeder judge) to a small group of us at a club function that they felt movement was just not important. If the dog could get from point A to point B that was all that mattered. They went on to say that if you were to find a proper moving bulldog you either found gold or it wouldn't be conformationally correct. This concerned me as one of the target recipients to the statment was a new couple to showing and I dont want them to feel its ok to just write off that part of the dog.

I have always believed movement to very important because like you said, its an indicator of overall soundness and I believe that it needs to move well to be conformationally correct. That doesnt mean that I couldnt and wouldnt forgive what I would personally consider to be minor faults in the movement if the rest of the package was nice but its one of the first things I look at besides the overall profile.

Just wondered if the majority of people also felt movement wasnt important or not. I have watched the video and thought the examples were ok, but they didnt wow me.

If you have examples that you could send me privately I would appreciate it to see how my mind's eye footage compares.

Catch "Munch" on TV moving in the Iams commercial. Pretty good moving dog. Straight down from the shoulder in front and terrific bulldog angulation in the rear, but not moving like a Sporting dog, moving like a good bulldog.

For now let's not discuss "roll". If you watch the Bulldog video, please discount the ridiculous notion of a bulldog tail waving from side to side to indicate "roll". Don't get me started on that stupid video. It's confused more people than educated them.

"Overall, how important do you feel good movement in a bulldog is and why?"

Movement is important in that that it determines over-all soundness. This is very important. It is also ndicitive of conformation. What is in debate is not if a dog moves soundly, but HOW it actually moves. Good movement to one person might be as simple as getting to point a to point b without a limp. Other people want to see some action, head held high, proud, effortless movement.
While none of us should desire a bulldog to move like an Irish Setter, some people get very turned on if the dog moves with that sort of action. For some It is important to mix some showy style with appropriate-for-the-breed action. "Appropriate" can be debateable. But getting to the nitty gritty of the breed, since dogs at the time of the bull baiting were not described at a trot, we really do not know for certain how an original bulldog moved. We have to mix soundness (most important) with action that fits proper bulldog conformation.
If a bulldog has a strong, well arched neck with good, wide shoulders that are layed back properly, and a deep chest with a round, not oval rib cage, he will surely move "cleanly" up front. This correlates good movement with good conformation.
A dog with a short neck won't extend very much and might just swing wide with each forward step. This is poor conformation leading to faulty movement. Tight shoulders will move in a stilted fashion, often looking as if they are "pounding" the grond rather than traveling over it. Loose shoulders will move in a very loose, disjointed fashion. Again, conformation determines the type of movement.
"Walking his width" is fine.. IF the dog is wide enough. If the dog is narrow through the chest, who cares if he walks his width anyway? Keep it in perspective.


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"What aspects of the movement do you think must be there for movement to be considered good... for example reach, drive, trueness of the flow in the front legs, swirling in the rear...converging, paddling, flexibility in limbs".

Well, it depends on who you ask and what country they are from. The BCA standard requires "unrestrained, free and vigourous".. the British standard does not read this way and sometimes foreign dogs move in a more stilted fashion than many of us here in the US are used to.
That being said, I have judged what I consider to be good movers over there, that do move in the "unretrained, free and vigourous" fashion that I personally prefer.
Granted, these three words can be interpreted in many ways, I tend to go with it in the simplest terms. Look at the dog. Is it moving freely, no effort, does it roll?
Issues like paddling, swinging, moving with a tight shoulder, are all examples of wasted effort and indicators of some sort of conformational deficiency.

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"Are there any examples of dogs that you feel move (or moved if they have passed) correctly".

Lots of them. I don't want to name names and if they are gone and there is no video to watch, pointless to name them here.

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"Is there anywhere to view examples of truly proper movement either in videos or in a photo series".

The BCA has a video, but even the producers acknowledge they only had a limited number of dogs to work with and while this video is excellent and points out many things, in my opinion, there is not a superb mover on that tape, just a few adequate ones.
e

BCA has a bulldog tape on movement. Hopefully you can find it on the bca website.

Harrold
www.majorleaguebulldogs.com