50 Fun Facts About Bull Terrier

The Bull Terrier's most recognisable feature is a head described as what shape?

Egg-shaped. The first Bull Terriers of the 1860s still had the usual dip between forehead and muzzle; later breeders bred it away, and the unbroken curve from skull to nose became standard in the early 1900s.

What shape are a Bull Terrier's eyes?

Triangular. Breeders deliberately bred for small, dark eyes sunk deep and set at a slant, chasing what the breed standard still calls a 'piercing glint'.

Which royal was convicted in 2002 after her Bull Terrier Dotty bit two children in Windsor Great Park?

Princess Anne. She pleaded guilty under the Dangerous Dogs Act and was fined £500; the judge spared Dotty's life but ordered her to be trained and kept on a lead in public.

James Hinks, creator of the Bull Terrier, lived most of his life in which English city?

Birmingham. Hinks, a shoemaker's son, started out there trading poultry before he moved into dog dealing and bred the all-white terrier that made his name.

Rufus, a Colored Bull Terrier, won Best in Show in February 2006 at which dog show?

Westminster. Rufus beat six other group winners at Madison Square Garden after an upset in the terrier group, and his owner retired him on the spot: 'This is his last show.'

Besides bulldogs and terriers, which breed did James Hinks cross into his early Bull Terriers?

Dalmatian. Hinks kept no record of his crosses, but his son recalled that he used the spotted breed early on to give his new terriers their striking all-white coat.

Which breed, nicknamed the 'American Gentleman', shares the Bull Terrier's bulldog-and-terrier ancestry?

Boston Terrier. Bostonians bred it in the late 1800s from a bulldog-and-terrier cross, and its tuxedo-like markings and tidy manners earned it the nickname.

Early-1900s breeders brought colour into the all-white Bull Terrier by crossing it with which breed?

Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Crossing back to this close cousin put colour into a breed kept white for decades, and American shows now judge White and Colored Bull Terriers as separate varieties.

Which colour do the breed standards prefer in a coloured Bull Terrier?

Brindle. Both the British and American standards break ties in its favour, and the colour has to dominate: the AKC disqualifies a 'coloured' dog that is mostly white.

On a white Bull Terrier, show standards accept coloured markings on which part of the dog only?

The head. James Hinks bred his terriers to be pure white, so the white variety's standard still tolerates a dark ear or eye patch and nothing further back.

Which nickname did James Hinks's all-white Bull Terrier earn in Victorian Britain?

The White Cavalier. Hinks sold his civilised fighting dog as a gentleman's companion, and the name summed up its code: it would never start a fight but could always finish one.

By the breed standard, how should a Bull Terrier carry its tail?

Horizontally. Bull Terriers are also prone to chasing that tail compulsively, a habit Tufts vets studied in 145 affected dogs and linked to trance-like states.

Why is the Bull Terrier considered unsuitable for an inexperienced owner?

It is independent and stubborn. Even the Kennel Club's breed standard calls the Bull Terrier 'obstinate', though it adds in the same breath that it is 'particularly good with people'.

A veterinary study using official aggression tests found no significant difference between Bull Terriers and which family breed?

Golden Retrievers. Researchers put 38 Bull Terriers through a state test designed for 'dangerous' breeds, and 37 reacted appropriately in every situation, no worse than the 70 retrievers used as a benchmark.

Which now-extinct breed did James Hinks cross with bull-and-terriers to create the Bull Terrier?

English White Terrier. Hinks wanted a cleaner-looking dog than the old pit fighters, with straighter legs and finer lines, and this sleek show terrier supplied them before dying out itself.

Which condition is far commoner in white Bull Terriers than coloured ones?

Deafness. Breeders are urged to screen puppies with a brainstem hearing test, and owners to rule deafness out before writing off a pup as disobedient.

Lethal acrodermatitis in white Bull Terriers resembles a human disorder of absorbing which mineral?

Zinc. In people the lookalike disease clears up with zinc supplements, but they do nothing for affected puppies, and in 2018 geneticists traced the dogs' version to a different gene altogether.

Which eye colour disqualifies a Bull Terrier from the American show ring?

Blue. It is the one fault that bars a white Bull Terrier outright under the American standard, where even a very crooked front only loses points; British judges merely call blue eyes 'undesirable'.

Vets advise screening Bull Terrier parents for inherited disease in which two organs?

Heart and kidneys. Faulty heart valves and a hereditary kidney disease both run in the breed, and kidney failure is often far advanced by the time it shows, so parents are scanned and urine-tested first.

General George S. Patton's Bull Terrier Willie had previously belonged to whom?

A fallen RAF pilot. The story goes that the dog, then called Punch, sometimes flew on bombing missions with his first master; when the airman failed to return, Patton's staff bought him in England in 1944.

After his dog fought Eisenhower's, why did Patton say his own dog should be confined to quarters?

The other dog outranked his. Eisenhower offered to lock up his own Scottish Terrier, Telek, instead, but Patton apologised and ruled that Willie, the junior officer's dog, was the one to be confined.

Which piece of a soldier's kit did General Patton have specially made for his Bull Terrier Willie?

Dog tags. Patton had regulation G.I. identity tags made for Willie, and after the general's death in December 1945 the dog was sent home to live out his days with the Patton family.

Pete, a White House dog often called a Bull Terrier, tore the French ambassador's trousers under which president?

Theodore Roosevelt. Pete had already bitten policemen and officials, and after he chased Ambassador Jusserand down a corridor and ripped his trousers, the dog was banished from the White House.

Patsy Ann, a 1930s Bull Terrier famed for meeting ships, was the 'Official Greeter' of which city?

Juneau, Alaska. Townsfolk swore she reached the right dock before a ship was even in sight, and a bronze statue put up in 1992 still watches the cruise ships come in.

Spuds MacKenzie, 'The Original Party Animal', advertised which product in the late 1980s?

Bud Light beer. Spuds debuted in a 1987 Super Bowl ad and sales reportedly jumped 20 per cent within a year, but the campaign was retired in 1989 amid complaints that it glamorised drinking.

Evie, the dog who played Spuds MacKenzie, was registered under which name?

Honey Tree Evil Eye. Named for the Illinois kennel where she was born, Evie was a suburban family pet, and reporters who tracked her down in 1987 revealed that beer's best-known ladies' man was a she.

Since 1999, which US retailer has used a white Bull Terrier as its mascot?

Target. The dog is called Bullseye after the store's red logo, which is painted around one eye with a non-toxic, vegetable-based colour that wipes straight off.

Which hockey commentator turned his Bull Terrier into a Canadian television celebrity?

Don Cherry. Blue was a gift from his Boston Bruins players, Cherry said he modelled the team's scrappy style on the dog, and Blue went on to appear in the opening of his Coach's Corner segment.

In film versions of Oliver Twist, the Bull Terrier Bull's-eye belongs to which criminal?

Bill Sikes. After murdering Nancy, Sikes tries to drown the faithful dog because it could identify him, and in the 1968 film Oliver! it is Bull's-eye who leads the mob to his hideout.

Scud, the Bull Terrier in Toy Story, belongs to which character?

Sid Phillips. Scud chews up toys as happily as his owner blows them up, and his chase after Woody and Buzz ends when he runs into a road junction and is boxed in by swerving cars.

Sparky, a Bull Terrier brought back to life by his young owner, is the hero of which Tim Burton film?

Frankenweenie. Disney fired Burton after he made it as a live-action short in 1984, judging it too scary for children, then backed his stop-motion remake of the same story in 2012.

Which 1989 French black comedy is narrated by its title character, a murderous white Bull Terrier?

Baxter. Adapted from the American novel Hell Hound, it lets the dog narrate in voice-over as he passes between owners, killing his first, a dull old woman, to get himself a livelier home.

Which newspaper comic strip, launched in 1984 by cartoonist Mike Peters, stars a yellow Bull Terrier?

Mother Goose and Grimm. Peters was already a Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist when he created Grimmy, a dog owned by a talking goose, and the strip spun off a Saturday-morning cartoon on CBS in 1991.

Bodger, an elderly Bull Terrier, treks across the Canadian wilderness with a Labrador and a Siamese cat in which 1963 film?

The Incredible Journey. Old Bodger is the trio's weak link, collapsing early in the 300-mile walk home through the wilds, and Disney retold the story in 1993 as Homeward Bound.

Spunky, a Bull Terrier who eats anything in sight, is the pet in which 1990s Nickelodeon cartoon?

Rocko's Modern Life. Spunky belongs to Rocko the wallaby and carries a cast of his own: Bloaty the tick and Squirmy the ringworm, two parasites who live on him and star in their own episodes.

Gaspard and Lisa, picture-book friends their publisher describes as Bull Terriers, live among humans in which city?

Paris. Anne Gutman and Georg Hallensleben, a wife-and-husband team, send the pair to an ordinary school alongside human children, and the books were later turned into a cartoon shown on Disney Junior.

James Hinks, creator of the 'English' Bull Terrier, was himself born in which country?

Ireland. Hinks was born in Mullingar to an English shoemaker, but the family went back to England soon afterwards, and he grew up there to trade in poultry before dogs.

A Bull Terrier guard dog turns bodyguard to the animal that saved him in which sequel?

Babe: Pig in the City. The guard dog nearly drowns in a canal while going after Babe, the pig rescues him, and the grateful brute, whom the film labels a pit bull, becomes his protector.

Kennel clubs give the Miniature Bull Terrier the same standard as the Bull Terrier, plus a limit on what?

Its height. A Mini may stand no more than 14 inches but has no weight limit; the small dogs fell so far out of favour that the Kennel Club dropped them from its register in 1918, until fans revived them 20 years on.

When Patsy Ann, a ship-greeting Bull Terrier, died in 1942, how did her town lay her to rest?

With a burial at sea. A crowd gathered the day after she died, and friends lowered her small coffin into the water from the dock where she had met the ships.

James Hinks, creator of the Bull Terrier, died in his forties of which disease?

Tuberculosis. It killed Hinks in his late forties and he left no record of how he made the breed, so much of what is known about his crosses comes from the later recollections of his son James.

Why did the original bull-and-terrier never settle into one uniform breed?

It was bred for performance, not looks. With no written standard, the crosses varied from one dealer's yard to the next, and that rough mix became the starting point for several later breeds, the Bull Terrier among them.

Which country has banned the import of Bull Terriers by name under a dangerous-dogs law of 2001?

Germany. Its law names four breeds that may not be brought in, the Bull Terrier among them, and customs officers police it at the border; elsewhere the breed is sometimes caught by bans aimed at 'pit bull types'.

Breed guides often compare the Bull Terrier to which kind of performer?

A clown. Breed write-ups call it 'clownish' and 'among the most comical and mischievous citizens of dogdom', a long way from the fighting pits the dog was first bred for.

Which singer put a Bull Terrier in a shirt and tie on the cover of his 1981 album Working Class Dog?

Rick Springfield. The formally dressed terrier turns up again in the last shot of the video for the album's number-one hit, 'Jessie's Girl', sitting in the audience as the band plays.

Beer cartons showing Spuds MacKenzie dressed as whom were ordered off Ohio shelves in 1987?

Santa Claus. Ohio's liquor rules forbid using Santa to sell alcohol, so regulators told the brewer to pull its holiday twelve-packs, and it stopped shipping them to the state.

Which senator waved a Spuds MacKenzie doll in the Senate while accusing brewers of courting children?

Strom Thurmond. He followed up within days with a bill to put cigarette-style health warnings on alcoholic drinks.

Who voiced the ghost of Spuds MacKenzie in a 2017 Super Bowl commercial?

Carl Weathers. In a spoof of A Christmas Carol, his ghostly Spuds steers an unsociable young man back to his friends, a comeback for a mascot the brewer had retired in 1989.

Patsy Ann, a Bull Terrier famed for meeting ships in her 1930s port town, was a regular at whose union hall?

The longshoremen's. She arrived as a family's pet but took to roaming the waterfront and bedding down with the dock workers, and it was in their hall that she died in her sleep in 1942.

In 1934 Patsy Ann, a dockside Bull Terrier, was named her town's 'Official Greeter' to protect her from whom?

The new dogcatcher. His orders were to seize any dog without a licence tag and Patsy Ann had none, so after an outcry the mayor gave her a collar, a tag and an official title at a dockside ceremony.