Growth & Size - please help..
Submitted by jonblack on February 20, 2012 - 4:05pmHi there,
Firstly, hello, this is my first post, about my first Bulldog, so any help, tips or advice is much appreciated.
My 'Buster' is 18 months old and is KC registered with a good bloodline. The question i have is this, how much more growing has he got? and here are some issues i have:-
His head is not at all 'massive' ?
His chest is not as extremely 'wide' as some photos of younger dogs iv seen ?
Am i still to see the classic charactaristics of the English Bulldog?, i.e. the large head, wide chest, and the bowed front legs ???????
Many people on this site have answered this question in parts, but without stating age of growth stages etc. Please be as specific as you can when answering.
King regards
AKC Standard
First congrats on your 1st bulldog. You may want to read the breed standard. You can find it on the http://www.akc.org/ or the breed illustration can be found on http://thebca.org/ They should not have bowed legs. Males will mature until they are 3 yrs old generally, depending on the lines. You have to know the dogs bloodlines to know how this dog will mature. Not all have huge heads or wide chests. Poorly bred bulldogs, that come from puppy milss and BYB tend to be tall and leggy and lack the breed standards. What is KC registration? I'm not familiar with that. Did you buy your dog from a reputable breeder that is showing their dogs and are conscientious about breeding quality dogs to the breed standard?
Sorry, im in th UK. KC is the
Sorry, im in th UK. KC is the UK version of AKC. Only dogs with a bloodline history can be registered i think.
His dad is a regular show dog, and sucessful im told. I know Buster's bloodline history going back 5 generations, but how will this actually tell me about his growth? I will have to contact his mother & fathers owners i suppose.
You say that males generally take up to 3 years to mature. So at half that age at 18 months old he still has many months of growing left,
Am i being paranoid when questioning his head & chest size at this stage/age?
Thanks for the reply
He does have
alot of maturing to do. So it is likely his head will get bigger in the next year. IMO if a dog is really lacking substance (bone mass) as a puppy they are less likely to have it as an adult. You might be able to look up pictures of his sire and dam on the Blueposts. http://www.theblueposts.org/pedigrees/search.html I'm assuming you have his papers and know his sire and dams registered names. We love pictures if you would like to post some of him.
My girl was over 2 - 2 1/2 when she "matured"
Until then, she had quite a broad chest but a tiny pea head. It eventually caught up with the rest :)
well...without Pictures *HINT* we love pictures :)
Gizmo looks like she has pretty well matured - no real change that we can tell, and she just turned 2 today -
Short, Squat, Big Head, Big Chest - more so than alot of the bullies we've met at gatherings - some are twice as tall as she is !
Honestly I'm not an expert, but I hope your questions have been answered by more knowlegable folk :)
But being in the U.K. ya REALLY think ya got an 'English' Bulldog? *ONLY KIDDING ! ! ! ! !* Poking a little Yank Humor at the Brits across the Pond ! (Ya should of see the look on the British Sailors I was drinking with in Okinawa years ago, when I told them 'Dang, it, I wish you guys would speak ENGLISH'
LOL We all had a problem figuring out each others 'Slang')
Last steps taken May 26, 2014 -- Been rolling along ever since . . . .
Bulldogs growing
A lot of bulldogs grow taller until they are about a year old and then fill out until they are about 2 1/2 years old. Yours should fill out – 18 months is not that old.