Natural birth as a vitality feature

A healthy dog starts with the selection of the parents. The aim of a serious breeder must be natural procreation with complication-free pregnancy and natural spontaneous delivery. One should critically oppose artificial insemination, especially with the bullys, because it often conceals a sheer inability to reproduce due to physical anomalies or loss of instinct. 

It is important to let the dogs decide. It is not for nothing that nature has shaped a natural pattern of sexual behaviour, which should guarantee the survival of the stronger. One should always choose two breeding animals according to all necessary health standards, which are willing and able to mate without human help or even compulsion.

"Bitches don't like to breed to smaller dogs," says Don Turnipseed, an American breeder of hunting Airedales who gives his bitches freedom of choice. "The dogs in this case have more sense than humans."

Our natural whelping mommies

Artificial insemination also destroys the selection of weak sperm, which would not naturally make the demanding journey to the mature egg cell. Of course, artificial insemination is allowed in certain cases to extend valuable lines from foreign countries, if both partners have proven that they can be covered naturally without any problems. We strictly reject artificial insemination due to comfort or cover-up of physical inability of breeding dogs. Not to mention insemination for reasons of hygiene, a common mistake among "breeders".

A heaviest birth with veterinary help and caesarean section should be the sad and rare exception for every dog breed.

The French and English Bulldogs are known for their special physique, which can lead to considerable difficulties due to the head size and the narrow pelvis, if the body of the breeding dog is too overtyped. 

Here the breeder must pay attention to a phenotypic variability, which also allows complication-free births within the breed standard. Therefore, breeding bitches should only be selected from strong lines to maintain the breed.

Studies have shown that the basin width of the French Bulldogs varies between 28.8 mm and 43.6 mm, the heads of the delivered foetuses have a circumference between 30.3 mm and 38.6 mm. Obviously, birth difficulties are inevitable here.

The Caesarean section rate of German-speaking FCI clubs is estimated at 70 - 80 %! Cesarean sections are partly not included in the breeding evaluation!

Due to this "normality" the breeding animals are expected to have several cut births, in some countries even only with local anaesthesia, so that the bitch is fully conscious. This is a high degree of torture for the animal and has nothing more to do with dog breeding!

Convince yourself of a normal birth when visiting the puppies by stroking the back belly of the bitch. Even a layman will quickly notice the bulging seam. A cesarean section for medical indication is not a breeding sin and can be appropriate at any time, only the bitches, who can only be helped in this way to bring the babies into the world, should not stay further in the breeding. 

In Germany, it is forbidden to breed in serious breeding associations after two Caesarean section births. The affected bitches are then taken out of the breeding, ideally neutered, also, so that in case of a change of owner a new occupation cannot take place here.

By an immediate report of the litter to the stud book office with veterinary certificate with the puppy inspection and/or puppy acceptance this is controlled and noted in the pedigree of the puppies. One can only hope that clubs and breeders stick to the truth and do not cheat on alleged natural births in between.

If the caesarean section has been initiated due to a weakness in the contractions of the mother bitch, which can be passed on, it is very important to know about it, e.g. if you are interested in a prospective breeding bitch from the affected litter. Every breeding bitch of the bulldog-like breeds should definitely come from a line that is as free of caesarean section as possible, from mobile parents who are able to carry out their own care and brood care independently.

If the bitch then also has a great relationship of trust with the breeder, who also deals with her in everyday life much and lovingly, and prepares her the necessary environment, one can already assume that the forthcoming birth without difficulties.

The correctly set and carried tail is not only important for the outward appearance, but a too high set or even missing tail often leads to considerable defects of the spine and also to a malposition of the pelvis. This inevitably leads to birth problems and must therefore also be taken into account when selecting breeding animals.

Of course the short compact bullys are nice to look at, but unfortunately these high placed bitches, when they are supposed to finally go into breeding due to their show successes, have considerable difficulties to give birth to their puppies in a natural way. You don't have to be a doctor to understand why.

The shorter and more compact you wish the dogs to be, the more likely there are movement restrictions due to the short spine. The shorter a bully is, the less space the puppies have in their mother. The less space the puppies have, the more likely it is that only a few fetuses will develop, but these will often become very large. The bigger the few puppies become, the more likely they are to cause their mother difficulties in giving birth.

Much greater is the danger that a normally sized litter of four to six babies, in exceptional cases up to twelve babies, will develop. A normally built, healthy breeding bitch often gets along well with this. An overtyped bulldog can then no longer deliver this mass without damage, so unfortunately very often it comes to premature death of the fruits, or to malformations and/or mispositions of the fetuses, which brings the bitch in addition to life-threatening and suffering.

Some breeders already consider it normal to feed their pregnant bitches with puppy milk up to two weeks before the actual date of birth, as they simply cannot eat and maintain normal food due to a lack of space in the abdominal cavity of the overcrowded bitches.

"At the latest" here begins the agony breeding of the breeds with the heavy birth, which these dogs would not survive mostly without surgical assistance. Therefore every serious breeder should take care to avoid these complications by intelligent breeding management. 

By carefully selecting and building up an anatomically suitable bitch, one can prevent much suffering here and also in the future. Also the puppy buyer is happy about a normally born puppy. They do not have to process any incriminating anaesthetics and are inoculated for the first time with immune-enhancing bacteria through the healthy vaginal flora of the mother bitch, which can later prevent allergic reactions. Let's stay with our bulldogs a little bit with mother nature and don't start the breeding thoughts already with predictable and firmly calculated artificial interventions. 

It must be clear that these dogs would not find any chance of reproduction in nature. 

Bullys with pure instinct