Who's CLOSER, or IS the Original Bulldog??

Many reputable breeders and historians believe the American Bulldog, in all its ranging types, is the origianl Bulldog, or at least the closes thing to it.

However, i always seem to find info on the APBT as well, when reading up on AB history.

Some historians believe that BOTH breeds are the "real thing", or again, the closes breeds to the originals of Old England.


What do you guys think & believe??

 

Ive seen so many different theories on how they originated, the one that I see more often is that they were originally bred in England from Staffy's and a specific Irish Terrier (?) that is now extinct, possibly with a few more breeds in there. They were bred for bull baiting not hunting, when bull baiting was banned (around 1830's) they were used in Pits to kill rats, (were the Pit name came in), the dog would be placed in a Pit with x amount of rats in there and whichever dog killed the most rats in a certain period of time was the winner, Ive heard people argue this theory but Ive seen paintings of this and heard stories of it, then they started fighting dog against dog in the pits (more blood-thirsty). The dogs were then taken to US were they were bred a little larger.....like I said, you go into any PB or other dog sites and youlll find different stories of how they came about, everyone seems to agree the origins are in England but even then there are different opinions if the present day Pit Bulls are the same as the dogs back then. Another one I heard that the American Staffordshire was actually the original UK version of todays APBT.....In some dog clubs, American Staffs and APBT's are considered the same, I always thought the American Bulldog was considered a seperate breed.......probably doesnt help much huh!

 

What i also find intersting is, don't qoute me on this but i can remember reading somewhere (but can't remember where - great huh?!) that the very 1st dog to be registered in the AKC was actually a Pitbull, from fighting strains.

And that the early Pit-bulls that were registered were hard to handle at "show-dog" events, so they demanded to create a "new-bulldog" to represent the English breed... Mutated into today's "sourmug", or English Bulldog.

It must have been the times, because i can't believe how the British wanted nothing to do with the Original Bulldog as a representation of England. So much history they tried to cover with the mutation of today's British Bulldog... Which is a breed entirely for "show", ok, and companionship, but NOTHING like a real, capable of working Bulldog.

The French Bulldog is more athletic than the English Bulldog even.

wow... sorry for the rambling... i guess you can tell i'm a bulldogger.... :y_the_best:

 

Heres an interesting site. Ive never read anywhere that the English Bulldogs (in any forms) were bred from either APBT's or Amercian Staffs's.
This site gives a history of the original style English Bulldog (I think someone brought it up in here a while ago as the 'new' Old English Bulldogge...not quite sure) anyways, the English Bulldog (originally referred to as a 'bandogge' can be traced back to the 1600's, then there were apparantly Pugs bred into them??? to get the English Bulldog close to what we have today. (like I said, the stories differ depending on which site your in.)
I know that a good few years back the judges at shows wanted flatter faces, broader chest, shorter neck....they have changed their ideals these days, at least in UK...I think also now in US and going back to a 'less disfigured' dog. Most sites Ive seen about English Bulldogs say the expected lifespan is 8-10 years, I cant comment on that elswhere but in the dogs that Ive seen and got to know in S.California area, Id say the expected lifespan is more like 3-5 years, mainly due to the respiratory problems....hopefully that will change.
I like Frenchies but they are in general quite a bit smaller, different personalities also, at least in the ones Ive worked with....nice dogs.
http://www.ioeba.net/ioebaoebhistory.htm

 

The AB was created from the APBT and a couple other breeds, so its a mixture from a few other breeds and not an original or old breed.

Petey was reg with the AKC who is a son of GR CH Black Jack, of course these dogs being AKC reg as AST were really game APBTs because thats all they had back then they were just starting out and didn't have a watered down show version yet.