Buying your Bulldog – how to chose the right breeder

Once I told Jackie I was okay with getting a dog the search began instantaneously. Her exact words were “No take backs!!!” But we soon learned finding a responsible breeder of bulldogs isn’t easy. We don’t have a car and there aren’t breeders in the city so our search was going to have to be online until we could find a nearby breeder and borrow a car. Googling “bulldog puppy” hits you with tons of cute pictures, lots of selling websites but very little concrete info. Then you start coming across forum postings about puppy mills, unhealthy bulldog lines, and other tragic stories. Jackie looked up a Virginia bulldog group and a lovely woman was the president who took the time to speak with Jackie for hours over all things bulldog. Jackie’s had bulldogs when she was little and her Dad, Steve, actually showed bulldogs so Jackie had much more knowledge than me (or the average person) but it was still helpful to speak with someone that knew breeders and could help with the process.

We learned some actionable keys to look for in a breeder:

• See if the parents are on site with recent pictures. Lack of parents on site means the seller might be a middle man that purchases puppies, transports them and sells them. This is bad because they likely don’t have full medical information about the family line and also because puppies that young shouldn’t be travelling many states just to be sold for a slightly higher price.
• Scam artists are out there. If a price seems too good to be true (less than $2,000) it probably is. If the breeder is asking for a $500 deposit sent by western union or some non-credit card/paypal method where you have no recourse if they don’t deliver the puppy it is likely a scam. A typical price is going to be between $2,000-$3,500 depending on the location and whether the bulldog is breed as a pet or show quality dog with show winning lineage. Deposits are standard because bulldog litters will often sell prior to them being 8 weeks and able to be taken home.
• If there is no accurate address for the location of the breeder this is also a sign it could be a scam, or that the conditions are not approved for dog breeding. It’s important to see the breeders location to ensure the dogs have ample outdoor space to play and indoor space to be safe from weather, heat and cold.
• Positive reviews with pictures and thank you notes (especially from Facebook or other sites not directly controllable like the breeders personal website) are a great way to learn about quality breeders. Our breeder’s page is covered with personal photos of her dogs, her family with their dogs, the spacious outdoor area and tons of thank you notes and updates on how the dogs are doing. She even responds to the updates showing genuine care.

After reading about scams and “miniature bulldogs” (which in another post we will discuss why they don’t actually exists) we started to get dissuaded by our search. Jackie got a call from the breeder that a friend of hers was having her first litter and she was helping oversee the process and pregnancy and offered to have Jackie come meet the new breeder and the soon to be bulldog mom. A few emails later and many pictures we were ready and had set up a time to drive the few hours to meet them. I wasn’t in love with the pictures because the bulldogs were brindle in color and I had grown up loving Jack the Bulldog, Georgetown’s mascot.  Several of my family members including my mother went to Georgetown and I had even been a ball boy there as a child so my experience with bulldogs had been with the white and fawn coloring and my heart had been set without even knowing it. Also, Jackie was growing impatient and waiting for this litter meant a few weeks til the birth than 2 months before we would be able to take the puppy home.

My mom, the queen of all things internet, and solver of all my problems was on the case and had been searching extensively online sending us links to breeders websites from all over. After about the 10th link I finally saw something to get excited about. It was a 6 week old litter of 6 with 2 girls and 1 boy still available within a long driving distance. When we saw the picture of Rukus (then Cody) wrinkly and adorable it was love at first sight.

The breeder said she usually did a $500 deposit but because we were ready to pick him up the day he turned 8 weeks which was only 11 days away so she said she would hold him and we could pay in full when we arrived. She was extremely friendly on the phone answering a million questions from us. She explained they had one last vet visit to finish shots, she had registration papers, she said she takes credit cards for payment, told us the address (I even check google maps street view to make sure everything looked good), and she had a website with descriptions of the parents and a facebook page with even more pictures of the parents and puppies. She said we could come up that weekend to see him but we were so confident (and it was a long drive) that we opted to wait to see him, pay and pick him up all at once.

The breeders location was more beautiful than the pictures. It was extremely spacious and the dogs air conditioned indoor space dwarfed our tiny 1 bedroom city apartment. The parents and puppies were playing in the fenced yard and our soon to be new puppy was fresh from a bath. Everything went as perfect as possible.

We hope detailing our experience will help others in their search for their own perfect bulldog puppy. If you have any questions we’re happy to answer and we look forward to comments of how other people successfully found their bulldog puppy.