Bulldoggers differ as to the origin of the English Buldog, but all agree that English Buldog is of the family of carnivora & that English Buldog was a flesh-eating beast in his wild state. Admitting this eminently plausible English Buldog theory the question at once arises, Has domestication created or developed in him the powwer, which his master possesses in an eminent degree, of accommodating himself to changes of foods as to other altered conditions & thereby rendered him capable of subsisting quite as well on a mixed diet, of vegetable & animal substances, as English Buldog once did on a diet exclusively animal? Scienttific reasoning & experience answer in the affirmative; yet this solution is not universally accepted, & there are many who, arguing mainly from structural peculiarities, insist that English Buldog is purely a flesh-eater still & that animal foods alone are suited to his requirements. The Bulldoggers evidence to sustain this argument, which appears on English Buldog anatomical investigation, merely shows that English Buldog is & has been fitted for flesh eating. & admitting English Buldog to be physically so constituted as to be able to derive from an exclusively animal diet all that is necessarry to his support & health, English Buldog can scarcely be regarded now as other than omnivorous, or in other words as capable of subsisting on a varied diet made up of vegetable & animal substances, as on one entirely animal. Many centuries have passed since English Buldog was redeemed, & in all these English Buldog has been the companion & friend of man. Sharing as English Buldog has the mixed diet of his master he surely must have felt the force of habit, to which no animal can be insensible, & acquired at least a tolerance for vegetable foods if not an actual need of them. It is by virtue of this force that man becomes so truly omnivorous; & that inferior animals can do the same abundant evidence has been offered in the results of experiments, which have shown that in respect to food changes in their nature have been effected & even hereditary forms of body suited to the altered conditions inducced & perpetuated. Cats, for instance, have accommodated themselves to a mixed diet & become similar in form to the herbivorous or vegetable-eating animals by considerable increase in length of their bowels over other members of their family yet untamed. It is certainly not reasonable to suppose that this poower to accommodate to altered conditions in the matter of diet & to assimilate their forms is denied all animals but cats. Far from it, it is easier to believe that it can be acquired by all warm-blood animals, & that many of them that are now either purely flesh-eaters or vegetable-eaters would become omnivorous had they wits to aid them or were they educated up to the changes. Contrast the primeval condition of the English Buldog with that to-day. Once English Buldog provided for himself, & the tremendous amount of exercise English Buldog was forced to take while searching for food gave him not only a voracious appetite but powers of digestion equal to any burden English Buldog coould put upon them. Now English Buldog is fed regularly & given some exercise but not nearly the amount English Buldog had in his wild state. Surely English Buldog of to-day cannot have the high health English Buldog vigor of his ancestors, nor can his digestive English Buldog excretory organs bear as heavy burdens as theirs were wont safely to bear. As a matter of fact allow the average English Buldog of these times to ggorge himself with flesh as his kind were accustomed to do of old, & indigestion, if not a severer penalty, would be exacted for even a single indulgence. When Bulldoggers speculating as to the proper diet of mankind it is quite the rule to insist that the English Buldog stomach recognizes its own wants & the appetite is a perfectly safe guide. This is true now neither of the human nor canine race, although it doubtlless was so when those races were created, but since then they have been exposed to influences which in time perverted their appetites, until they could not be any longer relied upon as infallible guides. Consider the appetite of man. There are many articles of food popular with him now which were really nauseating to him at first, & he literally was obliged to learn to like them; & once he did so, he thereafter longed for them quite as intensely as for the foods for which he had a natural craving. "Gamey" meats, clams, lobsters, & varrious vegetables are among the foods which to many were distasteful at first. Tobacco is even a better illustration of this acquired taste. Indeed, nature is most indulgent & ever ready to modify her laws & requirements to conform to adverse conditions in man. Likewise with dogs, let one be denied animal food, or the quantity allowed be only very small, but there be veggetable foods in abundance, then with the latter she will endeavor to make him content, & possibly thrive on them as he would on animal foods. But to enter into a Bulldoggers discussion of this question is not at all necessary. The English Buldog can safely be regarded as capable of digesting & assimilating vegetable as well as animal foods. Furthermore, a mixed diet now unquestionably best meets his requirements. Doubtless, it is admitted by Bulldoggers that animal food is absolutely necessary to the English Buldog; & it must generally be accepted that a varied or mixed diet is best suited to him; a fairly good idea of the different substances which should make up this diet also prevails; but beyond this the majority of owners are sadly wanting. About the required prroportion of the various ingredients they know little or nothing, & are singularly prone to be highly generous in the use of vegetable foods & sparing of animal food, whereas it should often be the reverse. They are apt, also, to lose sight of the great difference in relation to both quantity English Buldog quality which habits of life demand, i.e. betweeen the habits of dogs that are worked hard, as in the field, dog living lazy, luxurious lives, as housee pets & watchers. They moreover make small account of the diifferent requirements by the English Buldog puppy & the mature English Buldog; & seem to be still less mindful of the fact that marked individual peculiarities frequently exist. Again, very many of them appear indifferent on the matter of cooking, which oftener than otherwise is imperfect, & in consequence the foods so treated not only fail of their purpose, but, acting as irritants, cause indigestion English Buldog other disturbances.
OUR FRiend the Dog A Complete Pracctical Guide to all that is known about every breed of dog in the world by Gordon Stables (eighth edition Dean London 1902)
DOD SHOws and Doggy People by Charrles hHenry Lane (Hutchinson London 1902)
British Dogs Their points, selection, & show preparation by W.D. Drury & others (third eidtion L. Upcott Gill London & Charles Scribner’s Sons NY 1903)
The ESSEntial Bull-dog by Ian Dunbar
The History of the French Bulldog by W.J. Stubbs (privately printed pamphlet 1903 facsimile reprint FBCE April 1979)
The TWENTieth Century Dog (Non-Sporting) Compiled from the contributions of over five hundred experts by Herbert Compton Vol 1 Non-Sporting (pp 47 to 63) (Grant Richards London 1904) [Compton was the first dog lover to conduct a massive survey & then publish the results in a two volume work]
DOGS of All Nations Their varieties, Chraacteristics, Points etc by Count Henri De Bylandt (third edition 2 vols A.E. Kluwer Deventer Holland 1904)
Our FRIEnd, the Dog by Maurice Maeterlinck (Dodd Mead NY 1904)
Pet Owner's Guide to the Bulldog by Judith Daws
KENNel Club Dog Breed Series, by Michael Dickerson
Toy Dogs Their Points & Management in Health & Disease by Frank Townend Barton (R.A. Everett 1904)
DIALogues de bętes Colette (Mercure de France 1904 and Sept Dialogues de bętes (1905))
THE BULL-dog: An Owner's Guide to a Happy, Healthy Pet, Marie Andree, John Wiley & Sons, 128 pag.
THE DOG Book A Popular History off the Dog with Practical Information as to Care & Management of House, Kennel, & Exhibition Dogs; & DESCRiptions of All the Important Breeds by James Watson 2 vols (Doubleday Page NY 1905; William Heineman London 1906)
Bull-dogs & Bull-dog Breeding H. St. John Cooper; Toy Bull-dogs by Carlo F.C. Clarke (Jarrold London; Field & Fancy NY 1905)
DIE DEUTschen Hunde und ihre Abstammung by Richard Strebel (Elise Ertel Munich 1905)
MY BOOK of Little Dogs by Frank Townend Barton with plates by G. Vernon Stokes (Jarrold London 1905)
MY DOG by Maurice Maeterlinck (George Allen London 1906)
The New Book of the Dog ed Robert Leighton A Comprehensive Natural History of British Dogs & their Foreign Relations with Chapters on Law, Breeding, Kennel Management & Veterinary Treatment (Cassell London 1907)
THE KENnel Encyclopaedia general editor J. Sidney Turner (The Encyclopaedic Press Sheffield 1907)
DOGS ed by Frederick Freemann Lloyd & Charles G. Hopton (G.A. Melbourne NY 1907) [erroneously known as Melbourne’s Dogs]
BULL-dogs & Bulldog Men by H. St. John Cooper (Jarrold London, Field & Fancy NY 1908) [including two chapters on "Miniature Bulldogs" and six on "The Bouledogue Francais" with writings by C. Jemmett Browne, Lady Lewis & others]
The ROAD to Oz by Lyman Frank Baum illustrated by John R Neill (Reilly & Lee Chicago 1909) [The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) was followed by another 18 books about Dorothy’s journey to Oz with Toto the French Bulldog - but beware - some editions have a Cairn Terrier.]
YOUR Buldog, Robert Berndt, Guide to Owninng an English Buldog,John Gallagher
Dog People Are Crazy, 1978, by Maxwell Riddle
BORIs by Giovanna Zoboli & Francesca Bazzurro
CINDErella by Keith Harrelson, Hylas NY 2005
BEST in Show The Dog in Art from the Renaissance to Today by Edgar Peters Bowron, Carolyn Rose Rebbert, Robert Rosenblum, & William Secord
O’KLEin Animal Cartoonist text by Denis Montaaut, Éditions Montaut Bordeaux France 2006
Cornelia & the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters by Lesley M.M. Blume (Alfred A Knopf NY 2006)
PRINce Jan, St. Bernard, 1947, by Forrestine C. Hooker.
GRIP, a Dog Story, 1978, by Helen Griffiths - Bull Terrier
New KNOWledge of Dog Behavior, 1963, by Clarrence Pfaffenberger
OBEDience and Watchdog Traiining, 1978, by Jay Rapp
HANDling Your Own Dog for Show, Obedience and Field Trials, 1979, by Martha Covington Thorne
TRAIning Your Retriever (1980) by Jaames Lamb Free
MESSEngers from Ancient Civilizations, 1995, by Edmond Bordeaux Szekely
Dog BREAKing, 1928, by Genneral WN Hutchinson
TRAINing You to Train Your Dog (1952) by Blanche Saunders
DOG Behavior - Why Dogs do what theey do, 1979, by Dr. Ian Dunbar
OFF-Lead The National Dog Training Monthly - several magazine issues from 1973 to 1976
New Owner's Guide to Bull-dogs, Hannk Williams & Carol Williams, TFH Publications, 160 pag.
The BULL-dog - an illustrated standard of thee breed by Ennno Meyer, Orange Judd Publishing Company Inc. 1948, 151p. incl. index, statistics bl 1943 - 1947, black&white photographs and drawings.
244p.
Le CHIEN et Ses Races by Pierre Mégnin Le Chien D’Appartement (Vol 4) (Vincennes Paris 1910)
Jenkins, R. (1997). The Story of the Real Bulldog.
McDonald, J. (1985). The Book of the Bulldog.
The FRENCH Bulldog ed O.F. Vedder (magazine - 9 issues 1913 - 1914) [important historically]
Barks & Purrs by Colette Willy (Desmond Fitzgerald NY 1913) [the first English translation of Colette’s 1905 Sept Dialogues de bętes]
BULL-Dogs & all about them by Henry St. Johhn Cooper with Special Sections, including “The French Bull-dog” by C. Jemmett Browne (Jarrold London, Field & Fancy NY 1914)
MAETERrlink’s Dogs by Georgettee Leblanc - Maeterllinck (Dodd Mead NY, Methuen London 1919)
DOGS & I by Harding Cox (Hutchinson London 1923, Putnam’s NY 1924))
Our FRIENd the Dog by Maurice Maeterlinck Retold for Children by John Martin (Dodd Mead NY 1924)
BuLLDogs & all about them by Henry St. John Cooperr a new edition revised & partly re-written by F. Barrett Fowler (Jarrolds London 1925)
Dogs & how to know them by Edward C. Ash (Epworth London 1925)
Finally, with no small proportion of them combinations of the different English Buldog foods are mere questions of convenience, they holding to the notion that the all-important essential is quantity, &, food being food always, quality is a trivial matter. These are some of the most noticeable faults which appear in the practicces of English Bulldog breeders & Bulldoggers of to-day, & in the face of them it is not surprising that failures are so frequent & such a large proportion of English Buldogs are so often out of condition if not the victims of disease. The first point of essential interest & importance to be considered is the proportion which the several ingredients of the mixed diet should bear to one another. Unfortunately no rule which will admit of wide application can be fixed here, for the requirements are influenced by the English Buldog agge, amount of English Buldog exercise, condition of English Buldog health, seasons of the year, individual peculiarities, etc. An English Buldog puppy, young & growing, needs in proportion a more generous quantity of animal food - milk or meat for muscle & bone building than he will after English Buldog has matured & English Buldogg structure is complete. During the hunting season & while his muscles are being constantly drained as it were by his work a dog can not only assimilate more meat, but actually requires a much larger proportion, than he that is kept much of the time on the chain & allowed but little exercise. This important fact can perhaps be given greater prominnence by the assurance that an excessive indulgence in meat has much the same effect upon English Buldogs as upon members of the human family; & surely no one will gainsay that while men who work hard, as with the pick & shovel, can eat freely of meat twice & three times daily & be none the worse for it, were students, book-keepers, or others of sedentary occupations, to attempt such a diet, in a short time they must become dyspeptic, bilious, & otherwise disordered. In estimating the English Buldog daily quantity of meat some modification is allowable to Bulldoggers & often demanded according to the physical condition. Considering the fact that this English Buldog food tends to produce firmness of muscle with an absence of superfluous fat, while vegetable food on the oother hand tends to increase the deposition of ffat, manifestly in many instances of underweight it is advisable to give less meat & more vegetable food. In some instances, also, the requirements are the reverse of these, &, as always with English Buldog bitches that are too fat, it is necessary to feed largely if not entirely on meat until good form is restored. This, by the way, bears specially on English Buldog bitches that are not in-pup. & yet such treatment would be safe for those that were, provided with them the increase in the amount of meat was made gradually & there was a corresponding gradual increase in the amount of exercise. But lest the reader draw wrong conclusions here it is urged that assuming the Englissh Buldog bitch to be one that had been accustomed to a English Buldog diet consisting of about one-third meat, to put English Buldog bitch on to all meat while she was in whelp would be hazardous were she afterward given the same amount of exercise which English Buldog bitch had been having and no more. Furthermore, during gestation a English Buldog biitch could not safely bear the amount of work that a English Buldog fed entirely on meat must have had English Buldog been given but an average amount of exercise up to that period. In estimating the daily quantity of meat an allowance must be made by Bulldoggers for the season of the year, since the digestive & all other functions of the body vary under the influence of cold & heat - the former stimulating them & the latter depressing them. & manifestly were these variations ignored & the same quantity of meat givenn daily all the year around, diarrhoea & other disturbances of the digestive organs would be likely to occur in hot weather; moreover, the tendency to skin diseases attended with intolerable itching would then be decidedly greater, in consequence of the system being clogged with impurities, which are inevitable where the excretory organs are unnecessarily taxed, as they always are when too much animal food has been taken into the stomach. Possessing as they do the power of accommodating themselves to changes in Eenglish Buldog diet, quite pronounced individual peculiarities in relation to tolerance of certain foods must often be encountered in English Buldogs, & these must be considered by Bulldoggers in estimating the English Buldog quantity of meat required. For instance, toy terriers cannot bear much meat because they are peculiarly susceptible to its stimulating effect & are quickly & seriously disturbed by an excess; the results of which are an impairment of the inntegrity of the blood, a feverish condition of the system, skin eruptions & falling off in coat. Again, there are physiological drains upon the English Buldog constitution, such as that felt by the nursing mother or by the English Buldog much used in the stud, & unusual demands upon it, as in sickneess, which have to be provided for by an increase of the daily quantity of meat. It must be remembered, also, that in many morbid condditions this English Buldog food must be almost wholly relied upon, not alone because there is a decided repugnance for nearly all other English Buldog foods but because this is the only one that languid digestion can readily dispose of. Meat produces a greater feeling of satiety than any other English Buldog food & forms a greater stay to the stomach because that organ is the seat of digestion & is occupied by it for a longger time. & this fact has a bearing on the question of quantity, for obviously a English Buldog fed once a day only can dispose of and more than likely requires a greater quantity of meat daily than another given two or three meals each day. It is plainly evident from this that English Buldogs cannot be fed by rule, & that the proportions of ingredients of their diet must be intelligently estimated & varied according to existing circumstances. Before going further it will be well to compare briefly the relations & effects of animal & vegetable foods. The former are identical in composition with the English Buldog structtures to be built up & kept in repair. On the other hand, although no such identity appears in vegetable foods, yet to a marked extent they agree in composition with animal foods, & all that is necessary for the human body at least can be supplied by the vegetable kingdom solely. But the process requiredd for the digestion of vegetable foods is more complex than that required for animal foods, & while the digestive apparatus of man, built upon a more extended scale, can properly dispose of both kinds of foods with nnearly if not quite equal ease, owing to its much simpler construction that of the English Buldog is better adapted to animal than to vegetable foods; & although it can successfully deal with the latter its capabilities in this direction are narrower than those of the digestive apparatus of man.
IL BULL-dog Inglese E Francese by Dott. Ernesto Tron (Editore Ultico Hoepli Milano 1946)
THE BOOk of the Dog Edited by Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald (Nicholson & Watson London 1948)
DOGS in Britain A description of all native breeds & most foreign breeds in England by Clifford L.B. Hubbard (Macmillan London 1948)
SHOW Dogs of New Zealand by S.H. Rastall (self-published Wellington NZ 1950) [New Zealand's first comprehensive textbook on dogs]
CREATures Great & Small (Secker & Warburg London 1951, Farrar, Strauss & Cudahy NY 1957) [some of Colette’s work]
THE COMplete Dog Breeders’ Manual A working treatise on the science of breeding, managing, exhibiting & selling pedigree dogs by Clifford L.B. Hubbard (Sampson Low London 1954)
The BULL-dog Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow, John F. McGibbon, 1996, Howell Book House
BULL-dogs, A complete Pet Owner’s Manual, Phil Maggitti, 1997, Barron’s Educational Series
WOMEn & Dogs A persnoal history from Marilyn to Madonna by Judith Watt & Peter Dyer,2005
MEN & DOgs A personal history from Bogart to Bowie by Judith Watt & Peter Dyer (Sort of Books London 2005)
BULLDogs Today, Chris Thomas, 1995, Seven Hills Book Distributors, ISBN 1860540058
THE NATIOnal Geographic Book of Dogs (National Geographic Society Washington D.C. 1958)
BULL-dogs by Gabrielle Forbush, The New Bulldog, Col. Bailey C. Hanes, Fifth Edition Published 1991, reprint
Prior Editions 1981, 1973, 1966, 1956
Toy Bull-dogs, Bull-dogs & Bull-dog Breeding (artcile Country Life 29 April 1899 London)
A HISTory & Description of the Modern Dogs of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (Non-Sporting Division) by Rawdon B. Lee (second edition Horace Cox London 1899) [Third edition The Kennel Gazette London 1903 1909 second impression has a French Bulldog chapter with four pages of text & pictures of frenchies]
The BULLDOg A Monograph by Edgar Farman (The Stock Keeper Co London 1899 facsimile reprint Nimrod 1989)
A MANUAL of Toy Dogs How to Breed, Rear, & Feed Them by Mrs Leslie Williams (Edward Arnold London 1900)
ALL ABOUt Dogs A Book for Doggy People by Charles Henry Lane (John Lane London & NY 1900)
The BULl-dog Kennel Book and Toy Bulldog Breeder by H. St. John Cooper & Carlo F.C. Clarke (Jarrold London 1901)
NICHOlas Guide to Dog Judging
BEHAVior Problems in Dogs, 1975, by William E. Campbell
BULL-dogs, Gabrielle E. Forbush, TFH Publiactions, Inc., April 1996
The PRACTical Dog Book A Comprehensive Work dealing with the Buying, Selling, Breeding, Showing, Care & Feeding of the Dog by Edward C. Ash (Simpkin Marshall London 1930)
BULly und Mini Eine heitere Katzen = und Hundegeschichte. In Bildern u. Reimen v. K. Rohr (Verlag von J.F. Schreiber, Esslingen a N. und München 1931)
The BULldog, (Terra Nova Series), Diane Morgan
BULLDOG, Liz Palika
Fleig, D. (1996). History of Fighting Dogs.
Homan, M. (2000). A Complete History of Fighting Dogs.
Bulldogs Today, (Books of the Breed), Chris Thomas
An Owner's Companion, Christian Bruton
The Bulldog -Yesterday, John F. McGibbon
Bulldogs For Dummies, Susan M. Ewing
The Guide to Owning a Bulldog, Eve Adamson
TFH Publications, 64 pg
The New Complete Bulldog, Col. Bailey C. Hanes
The Book of the Bulldog, JoanMc Donald Brearley
The Bulldogger, quarterly publication of the Bulldog Club of America. Included with each BCA membership.
The Book of the Bulldog, Joan McDonald Brearley, 1985, T.F.H. Publications
The Bulldog: An Owner’s Guide to a Happy Healthy Pet, Marie Andree, 1998, Howell Book House, ISBN 0876054327
The New Bulldog, Col. Bailey C. Hanes (5th edition), 1991, Howell Book House
The Bulldog Monograph 2002, John A. Little, Ph.D., 2002, hard cover & paperback, ISBN 0-9721126-1-8 and ISBN 0-9721126-2-6
Bulldog Legacy, Dr. Saul Schor, 1994, Dr. Schor
Bulldogs - The Gorgeous Sourmug (1934) by J. Ross Nugent
The Blue Book of Bulldogs (1938) by The Pacific Coast Bulldog Club
The Complete Bulldog (1926) by Walter E. Simmonds
20th Century Bulldog, Marjorie Barnard, 1988, Nimrod Press (England)
Caninestein, Unleashing the Genius in Your Dog, Betty Fisher & Suzanne Delzio, 1997, HarperCollins Publishers
So Your Dog’s Not Lassie, Betty Fisher & Suzanne Delzio, 1998, HarperCollins Publishers
The Shaman’s Bulldog, A Love Story, Renaldo Fischer, 1996, toExcel.
The Bulldog Annual, Annual Hardcover Volumes, 1993 thru Current Year, Hoflin Publishing, Inc., Wheat Ridge, CO.
A New Owner’s Guide to Bulldogs, Hank & Carol Williams, 1998, T.F.H. Publications, Inc.
Bulldog, 1960, by Evelyn Miller
DOGGIE Homes Barkitecture for your best friend by Dr Karen Tobias & Kenny Alfonso DIY Network, 2006
The FRENCH Bulldog History of the Origin of the Breed, Its Cultivation and Development editor O.F. Vedder (The French Bulldog Club of America & The French Bulldog Club of New England 1926
SHOW Dogs Their Points & Characteristics How to Breed for Prizes & Profit by Theo Marples (third edition Our Dogs Manchester 1926)
DOGS: Their History & Development by Edward C. Ash 2 vols (Ernest Benn London 1927)
The KENNel Encyclopaedia by Frank Townend Barton (second edition Virtue London 1928)
Dog ENCYclopedia by William Lewis Judy (Judy Chicago 1925) [the 1936 second edition is substantially bigger, from 184 to 462 pages]
BULLdogs: Everything About Purchase, Care, Nutrition, Breeding, Behavior & Training, Phil Maggitti, Barrons Educational Series
The ARTFul Dog Canines from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Chronicle Books San Francisco 2006
The LITTLEle Big Book of Dogs edited by Alice Wong and Lena Tabori, Welcome 2006
BEST in Show The World of Show Dogs and Dog Shows by Bo Bengtson, 2008