Olde English Bulldogge | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Origin | United States | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dog (domestic dog) |
The Olde English Bulldogge is an American dog breed, recognized by the United Kennel Club (UKC) in January 2014. The breed is listed in the UKC Guardian Dog Group.[1] Five years prior to UKC recognition, the breed was registered by the former Canine Developmental, Health and Performance Registry (CDHPR), a privately held business located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In the early 2000s, CDHPR had been working with the UKC under a unique agreement to develop breeding plans and strategies in an effort to produce improved breeds of dogs that would be accepted as purebred and, therefore, eligible for UKC registration.[2]
In the early 1970s, dog breeder David Leavitt of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, wanted to "recreate a Bulldog with the looks, health and athleticism of the 18th Century Bulldog which was originally created for the English sport of bull baiting between the years 1100 to 1835".[3] In an effort to rapidly achieve his goal for a purebred dog, Leavitt modeled his program after a livestock line breeding scheme developed by Nathan Fechimer, a professor in the Department of Dairy Science, Ohio State University.[1] The result was an athletic breed that looks similar to the bulldogs of 1820, but with a friendly temperament, fewer health issues, and with longevity reaching into the teens. U.S. researchers have said the Olde English Bulldogge is a "viable candidate" as an outcross on which to rebuild the Bulldog; a breed that genetic studies have suggested is so inbred that it "cannot be returned to health without an infusion of new bloodlines."[4]