History of the Old English Whites...

[Noah]

Been chit-chatting with a bulldog friend over in Switzerland over a painting she showed me... dog looked familiar and we've come to a rough outline of some "supposed" history of sorts...

This is the painting that caught my attention... "Old English White Bulldog"... looks like a typical weekend get together where I'm from!! (William Dobson painting mid 1800's) I'd like to know the story behind this painting, just love it... dog used for bull bating(catching/fighting bulls for public entertainment)... thought to be a cross of Mastiff and Greyhound...


... and then we have this cute little fellow with the pink ribbon.... bet you wouldn't believe that this fine specimen is in the makeup of the infamous "Pit Bull TERRIER"     "the Old English White Terrier"... crossed in with the Old English Bulldog for quickness and tenacity for fighting purposes... I've seen some throw back culls that look real similar lol...


... Apparently, Britain outlawed bull-baiting and fighting dogs in the early 1800's... at which point many English Whites were exported to the Americas.... and there, I believe, we can trace where the bull blood comes from in our curs of today...

[rdjustham]

Man i gotta tell ya noah.. Im a little dissapointed in you  .  I figured this was going to be much more in depth, seeing as  most of your philisophical stuff is.. I think the only solution is you keep adding too it. 

[Noah]

HAHA, I wasn't lookin' for it, this piece to the puzzle just kinda fell in my lap...     

... figured one of these pit/AB gurus on here would be quick to jump in and edumacate me 

[DWEST]

you can search and search bout them bull dogs.  Seems most stuff you find now is people pushing whatever line they are selling.  Seems they have split into several directions, not as many working dogs.  guess its the same with a lot of breeds  JMO

[ROCKIN ROO HOG DOGS]

The bulldog is trashing on a deer in the painting.......see a couple of glam fairies with thier shirts off too..looks like new years eve in california!

[gary fuller]

easy on california there roo lol. also ya look close you will see them 2 men have boxing gloves on. as for  the makeup of the pit bull terrier its which camp you want to go with. the bulldog to a game terrier breed or the apbt is basically what was called stafordshire bull terriers too. look inot old stuff on bearenbisers and bullenbeisers and  has history also. as a ab man for many yrs now and before that a apbt guy i always enjoy historical stuff. as for abs i do believe in some lines they go back to dogs such as in the cool painting you posted but i also believe some abs, white english, old southern whites etc are pretty much a breed made up here in america from dogs that either looked the same a dn or did the job of what folks wanted from a so called bulldog.

[blakebh]

Good stuff Noah! Most people dont realize or even try to understand the true history of the APBT. Terrier being the key word here for me! These old terrier type bulldogs are in my opinion the foundation for today's game bred APBTs. I have had quite a few pure bred APBTs and the ones I have liked the most for working purposes were way more terrier like than bulldog. Again this is just my personal opinion. Also I really dont see any Greyhound type dog being crossed into the mix but who really knows.

[tmatt]

Noah, what gave you the idea that the dog in the painting is of mastiff and greyhound cross? I have researched bulldogs, namely APBTs, for a while now and have never seen anything that would suggest any greyhound influence in any of them. As for the "English White Terrier" I do believe the is a strong possibility it was used to produce the original "bull and terrier" dogs.

[tmatt]

Pit bulls are actually one of the oldest and certainly one of the purest. Written pit bull pedigrees date into the late 1700's, something very few other breeds can boast of. Pit bulls have been a registerebreed longer than most AKC breeds have been in existence. Louis Colby's father, John Colby, gave his son a handwritten pedigree of Colby's Blind Jack, an animal born in 1932. The pedigree stretches back more than 50 years, naming, in Louis Colby's words, "the best fighting dogs in England and America in the past fifty years." In the mid 1880's, the breed was already old.

[tmatt]

Circa 1406 Edmond de Langley, Duke of York, wrote a treatise entitled "The Mayster of the Game and of Hawks" in which he described the "Alaunt" or "Allen" dog (a descendant of the ancient molossoid dogs), which was the popular baiting dog of the time because of its tenaciousness and strength. In a 1585 painting, dogs described as Alaunts that look very similar to modern day Pit Bulls, only of a larger size, are shown hunting wild hogs. The name "bulldog" was first mentioned in print in 1631. Later, dogs described as bulldogs were used to bait bull and bear. These bulldogs are most assuredly the descendants of the Alaunt. A letter written in Spain in 1632 by an Englishman named Prestwich Eaton to his friend George Wellingham who was in London, asked for a "good mastiff dog and two bulldogs." This gives indication that a split had occurred and the bulldog had already formed into a distinct type by this time.
    By viewing art, we can see two distinct types of bulldog-like dogs. Some are more low-slung, with undershot jaws, heavier-boned, and broader. It is to be assumed that this is the prototype from which the modern-day AKC Bulldog was drawn upon, having been created by the crossing of the Alaunt with a Chinese brachycephalic breed Pai Dog. However, also to be noted are bulldogs in art that are strikingly similar to modern day Pit Bulls, with less-exaggerated features and longer legs. Might these be the main ancestors of the current day Pit Bull? It would seem likely. It must be noted that "bulldogs" at this time were not dogs of any particular strain or breed, but rather a type of dog with certain traits that was used for certain things. Dogs which possessed more Pit Bull-like features went on to become the Pit Bull breed after being mixed with terriers, while the more "bulldoggy" bulldogs were used in creation of the brachycephalic breeds (Bulldogs, French Bulldogs, etc).

[Noah]

Just repeating what was told me by a dog expert overseas, going off of what I've learned from this person already, I am inclined to believe it..  when referring to the Greyhound blood, it was believed that the oriniginal Molloser/Mastiffs tried for bull baiting were too sluggish and the Greyhound was introduced to increase agility, producing the bulldog, or "Alaunt"

Good info though tmatt, thankyou!  I'm still trying to get a grasp on the whole picture

[SCHitemHard]

noah some pictures i found off a site about old english bulldogs hope you enjoy





also this website was real fun to read, since you posted it up and ive been bored all day i did some diggin, might not be much
http://www.homesteadbullhunde.com/bulldoghistory.php

[tmatt]

I had never heard of the greyhound influence before so I was just wondering. Sure makes one wonder about what truly makes up a particular breed of dogs.

[gary fuller]

any of you guys read the dieter flieg books, stock full of history

[tmatt]

[SCHitemHard]

well in older england they were called Bull hunde also known as "bull hounds"

[pigrig]

very cool keep digging

[Noah]

Anybody know where the Bull Terrier split off from this?

[SCHitemHard]

Anybody know where the Bull Terrier split off from this?

"On the subject of whether or not the American Pit Bull Terrier is a result of a crossing of bulldogs of old and the extinct White Terrier you have to draw your own opinion." -APBT history website

prolly will never know there noah

[jakes]

Noah the bull terrier was developed in the 1850's and 60's by James Hinks. Hinks owned a bulldog(uncertain of origin) old madman and a bull and terrier(uncertain of origin) puss. This cross was the foundation of the bull terrier of yesterday. Old madman was a pit dog and I believe puss was a show type dog. There is no way to know exactly how those dogs were bred. The bull terrier today was developed well into the 1900's. They were crossed back with the staffordshire bull terrier. That's where the breed picked up the brindle coat. If you would like google James hinks. Good pictures and a walk through history