49 Fun Facts About French Bulldog

In which city did the French Bulldog take shape as a breed in the nineteenth century?

Paris. France's breed club calls it the only dog breed native to the capital, raised in its working-class districts before the cafés and salons took it up.

Which displaced English tradespeople carried Toy Bulldogs to Normandy during the Industrial Revolution?

Nottingham lace workers. Their toy bulldogs founded a new breed in France, and when it reached England in the 1890s under a French name, Bulldog traditionalists were up in arms.

In 2020 the Kentucky hamlet of Rabbit Hash elected a French Bulldog named Wilbur to which office?

Mayor. Rabbit Hash began electing dogs in 1998 as a fundraiser for its historical society: each vote cost a dollar, and Wilbur's backers bought more than 13,000 of them.

Which Star Wars actor took her French Bulldog, Gary, to premieres, talk shows and red carpets?

Carrie Fisher. She got Gary as a therapy dog to help with her bipolar disorder, and said a Force Awakens screening was so loud he stayed awake to watch it: "So I think that's a good review."

Bouledogue is French for bulldog, but its halves, boule and dogue, are French words meaning what?

Ball and mastiff. The match is a happy accident: French dictionaries trace bouledogue straight to the English bull-dog, a dog bred to bait bulls.

Which two café-life painters are thought to have painted French Bulldogs?

Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. Both painted the café and dance-hall demimonde, where the little bulldog was the fashionable pet of society ladies and streetwalkers alike.

The French Bulldog's front-heavy build means most of the breed cannot safely do what?

Swim. The American breed club warns that Frenchies can easily drown, so they should wear a life vest around water and never be left unattended near a pool or even a bathtub.

Which show's 1897 row over ears led Americans to found a French Bulldog club?

Westminster. English judge George Raper gave the prizes to dogs with the ears he knew from home, and the angry American owners answered by founding a club and writing their own breed standard.

In 1898 American French Bulldog owners staged their own breakaway show in the sun parlor of which New York hotel?

The Waldorf-Astoria. The club had pulled out of the city's big annual show in a quarrel over judging, then sent hundreds of engraved invitations to New York society for one of its own.

Which ear type did the French Bull Dog Club of America's breed standard prefer?

Erect bat ear. French and British breeders attacked the rule, but the Americans held firm; without them the bat ear would have been bred out and the Frenchie left looking like a scaled-down Bulldog.

Small as it is, the French Bulldog is kept out of the AKC's Toy Group and shown in which group instead?

Non-Sporting Group. It is the AKC's catch-all for breeds that fit none of the other six groups, so in the show ring the Frenchie meets the Bulldog it was bred down from.

Winston, the French Bulldog who won America's National Dog Show in 2022, was co-owned by a player in which league?

NFL. Defensive lineman Morgan Fox helped raise Winston as a puppy, and a show announcer quipped that the muscular little dog "runs like a little linebacker".

The French Bulldog is known for seldom doing what?

Barking. The AKC calls Frenchies "dogs of few words", yet says their alertness still makes them excellent watchdogs.

Which fashion designer gave every one of his French Bulldogs the same name, Moujik?

Yves Saint Laurent. He owned the dogs one after another, each inheriting the name, and one Moujik had his portrait painted by the designer's friend Andy Warhol.

Britain's Kennel Club renamed the 20-pound Toy Bulldog, the French Bulldog's English cousin, as which kind of Bulldog?

Miniature. Dogs of up to 20 pounds "could scarcely be called toys", a breeder wrote in 1907, by which time French imports were being used to revive the dwindling English strain.

In 2023 the French Bulldog ended which breed's 31-year run as the AKC's most popular?

Labrador Retriever. The Frenchie's breed club credits city living for the upset: a comical little dog with modest exercise needs offers apartment dwellers "a lot in a small package".

A 2021 UK veterinary study found French Bulldogs far less likely than other dogs to be recorded with which problem?

Bad behaviour. The study made grim reading for the breed overall, but its authors argued that results like this show the Frenchie has the potential to become healthier.

Which US congresswoman named her French Bulldog puppy Deco in 2020, after her favourite design style?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She called Art Deco "a fixture in iconic NYC architecture"; PETA, less charmed, scolded her for buying a puppy instead of adopting a shelter dog.

Which arched back shape does the AKC standard name among the hallmarks of the French Bulldog?

Roach back. The hind legs are longer than the forelegs, which lifts the loin above the shoulders and gives the Frenchie its gently humped outline.

Under the AKC standard, a French Bulldog over 28 pounds faces what?

Disqualification. Pet Frenchies often run heavier: a study of British vet records found the average adult male weighed 13.7 kilograms, about 30 pounds.

Which of these traits breaks the AKC breed standard for a French Bulldog?

Blue eyes. Any trace of blue or green in the eye is ruled out, and so are fashionable "fad" coat colours such as blue, which the breed club warns can carry health problems.

A white French Bulldog with dark patches is known by which colour name?

Pied. The word comes from "pie", an old name for the magpie and its black-and-white plumage: the same bird that gave us piebald horses and the Pied Piper.

Which coat colour has traditionally been the most common in French Bulldogs?

Brindle. The dark striped coat was the one the breed's first French fanciers prized most, and a 2013 survey of British vets' records still found it just ahead of fawn.

The French Bulldog's shortened snout and pushed-in face is known by what term?

Brachycephaly. From the Greek for "short head", it squeezes the airway so badly that Britain's Kennel Club standard now calls dogs in respiratory distress unacceptable in the show ring.

A UK study of 43 common disorders found French Bulldogs most prone to which?

Narrowed nostrils. Vets call them stenotic nares, and breed standards now push back: Britain's Kennel Club asks for "visibly open nostrils" and the FCI for a nose that allows normal breathing.

An old description calls the French Bulldog "a clown in the cloak of" what?

A philosopher. The joke lies in the contrast between the breed's grumpy expression and its playful nature, which Britain's Kennel Club standard sums up as "clown-like qualities".

Why do several commercial airlines refuse to fly French Bulldogs?

Deaths in flight: US figures showed short-nosed breeds made up about half of all dogs that died on flights. The bans opened a niche for pet-only airlines, where such dogs made up a quarter of the passengers.

More than 80% of French Bulldog litters are delivered by which procedure?

Caesarean section. A British study of emergency vets found French Bulldog mothers 15.9 times likelier than crossbreeds to have a difficult labour, the highest risk of any breed.

A 2022 UK study gave the French Bulldog the shortest life expectancy of 18 breeds; which breed came out longest-lived?

Jack Russell Terrier, at 12.7 years to the Frenchie's 4.5. The authors warned that a boom in puppies had left the Frenchie population unusually young, which drags its figure down.

American breeders say a DNA test has all but bred out which inherited eye disease in French Bulldogs?

Juvenile cataracts. When research began in 2009, about a quarter of Frenchies tested carried the gene; the American breed club says testing has since cut that to under 2%.

Breeding for the French Bulldog's screw tail is blamed for which malformation higher up the spine?

Hemivertebrae. The wedge-shaped bones that coil the tail can also form further along the spine, where they may squash the spinal cord and cause pain or hind-leg weakness.

A French veterinary school traced nearly half of its French Bulldog neurology cases to which condition?

A slipped disc. As a dwarf breed the Frenchie has spinal discs that degenerate early, so the dogs in the study were typically only about four years old when one ruptured.

Britain's Kennel Club refuses to register French Bulldog puppies with which coat pattern?

Merle. The gene that mottles the coat raises the risk of impaired hearing and sight, and the AKC standard rules merle coats out as well.

The champion French Bulldog Gamin de Pycombe, bought in England for £150, was lost in the sinking of which liner?

Titanic. Owner Robert Daniel survived and claimed $750 for the dog; a French Bulldog judge also aboard was rescued and judged the breed's New York show five days later.

Which singer's French Bulldogs Koji and Gustav were stolen in a 2021 Hollywood shooting?

Lady Gaga. Police said the thieves had no idea whose dogs they were and wanted the Frenchies for their resale value; the woman who handed them back was among five people arrested.

The internet-famous Chicago French Bulldog Manny was named after a star of which sport?

Boxing. He was named for Filipino champion Manny Pacquiao, though his owners nearly called him Derrick, after Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose.

Britain's Kennel Club shows the French Bulldog not with the Toy breeds but in which group?

Utility. When a Frenchie called Elton won the group at Crufts in 2024, the RSPCA complained that rewarding so flat-faced a dog "sends completely the wrong message".

France's breed club says Toy Bulldogs from England were crossed with which local dogs to create the French Bulldog?

Ratters. The little rat-catchers were kept to clear stables of vermin; other accounts add Pugs to the mix, and nobody kept records of the crosses.

Which lifestyle mogul, a French Bulldog owner herself, hired the internet-famous Frenchie Manny to model her pet products?

Martha Stewart. Manny modelled her PetSmart line after going viral, having started out as the unwanted puppy of his litter, sold to his owners at a discount.

The AKC standard says a French Bulldog's head should be what shape?

Square. Britain's Kennel Club asks for the same shape, but in 2021 it rewrote its standard to demand a well-defined muzzle that shows in profile, to rule out exaggerated looks.

British registrations of French Bulldogs stood at about 2,800 in 2011; roughly how many were there in 2020?

39,000 or so, a fourteen-fold rise in nine years that carried the Frenchie past old favourites to become Britain's second most registered breed.

What did newspapers call a striking innovation at the French Bulldog club's exclusive 1898 New York event?

Women showing their own dogs. Ladies did not then exhibit in public rings, and the New York Herald put the innovation down to the "semi-private character" of the invitation-only show.

The early American French Bulldog club counted a Belmont, a Whitney, a Roosevelt and assorted members of which dynasty?

Vanderbilts. It was a millionaire's breed: a dealer's imports at one 1897 show were catalogued at $750 to $2,000 apiece, prices the breed club itself calls astronomical for the times.

By the breed's official history, the early French Bulldog was chiefly the dog of which working men?

Butchers and coachmen. Market porters kept them too, until the snub-nosed dog, in the words of the international standard, "won over high society and the artistic world".

In the 1890s the French Bulldog's distinctive ear shape went by which flowery name?

Tulip ear. An 1897 show judge held that only the folded rose ear was right for a small bulldog; American owners disagreed so hotly that they formed a club to defend the tulip.

What was the single most common disorder in a 2013 UK study of 2,228 French Bulldogs?

Ear infections. Vets recorded them in 14% of the dogs, and they are no trifle: a French clinic found infections that reach the inner ear a common cause of balance trouble in the breed.

A UK study put French Bulldogs' odds of obstructive airway syndrome at about how many times other dogs'?

30. The syndrome can need corrective surgery, and Britain's Kennel Club now urges breeders to have a dog's breathing graded before it is ever bred from.

A Japanese study of pet-cemetery records found the French Bulldog shortest-lived; which native breed lived longest?

Shiba Inu, at 15.5 years to the Frenchie's 10.2. Even that bottom-of-the-table figure was more than double the life expectancy a British study of vet records gave the breed.

Why are French Bulldogs particularly prone to overheating?

They cannot cool down effectively by panting: the squashed airway limits how much air a Frenchie can move, so owners are told to keep it indoors, with air conditioning, in hot or humid weather.