OFF WITH THEIR TAILS? 👑🐂

Ocean was the 1st tail we ever kept…

Why We Started Keeping Natural Tails on Our Olde English Bulldogges

There was a time when a Bulldog with a tail looked unusual to us too.

Then we started importing dogs.

SunshineBulls’ Dollar came to us from Brazil 🇧🇷, and later, in 2017, we imported Bullforce Godzillah from Denmark 🇩🇰. Both came with their natural tails.

And somewhere along the way, our eye changed.

These were powerful, muscular Bulldogs, and their tails didn't take anything away from that picture. Actually, we thought they accentuated it.

Watching them move was beautiful. The tail became part of the silhouette—an extension of the topline, movement and muscle. Instead of looking at a tail and thinking that needs to come off, we started looking at it as another part of the dog.

And when it's a good one?

A good tail is a flex. 🐂✨

OCEAN CHANGED THE GAME 🌊

In 2017, Bulky Built’s OCEANAIRE became the first Olde English Bulldogge puppy we intentionally kept with her natural tail.

That was a pretty big departure for us at the time.

But we loved the way she looked.

So we kept another.

And another.

And another.

Fast-forward almost a decade and we have so many Bulldogs with tails that we barely even notice them anymore. 😂

What once looked different became completely normal to us.

And apparently, we weren't the only ones whose eyes were changing.

When we first started keeping them, natural tails still stood out in our corner of the Bulldog world. Now look around.You'll see Bulldogs with tails all over the United States.

We're proud to have been keeping and showing them long before it became as common as it is today.

SO… DO WE STILL DOCK TAILS?

Yep.

We're not anti-docking, and we're not trying to make a rule for everybody else.

We evaluate the dog in front of us.

If a puppy has a beautiful tail that complements the dog, chances are we're keeping it.

If it's skinny, badly kinked, awkward or simply takes away from the overall picture, we may dock it.

And sometimes there's a weird little kink and we keep the damn thing anyway because we love the dog. 😂

We're Bulldog breeders. Nothing about Bulldogs is quite that black and white.

There are also Bulldogges born with naturally short tails, so a short-tailed dog isn't necessarily a docked dog.

The goal for us has never become TAILS AT ALL COSTS.

The goal is the whole dog.

YES, WE KNOW SOME PEOPLE DON'T LIKE THEM 😂

We've actually lost puppy buyers over tails.

Some people have a very specific picture in their heads when they imagine their Bulldog, and that picture includes a little docked nub.

We understand it.

But we're also not going to cut off a beautiful tail simply because someone hasn't gotten used to looking at one yet.

Because we've seen the finished product.

We've watched badass adult Bulldogs with beautiful tails stack, run and move. We've watched that tail emphasize the power coming through the rear and complete the silhouette of the dog.

That's why we love showing them off.

Don't just look at the puppy. Look at the adults.

Watch them move.

Then tell us the tail ruined the Bulldog. 😏🐂

AND MAYBE WE'RE GETTING SOFT…

There's another part of this that has nothing to do with looks.

The older we get, the harder it has become to justify removing an appendage when we really like what Mother Nature put there in the first place.

Docking has never been lovely.

And over years of raising litter after litter, we've also observed something that has stuck with us: our newborns seem to take a little decline around docking compared with the puppies whose tails we leave alone.

That's our observation from our own whelping boxes—not some grand scientific declaration.

But when you've spent enough nights staring into those boxes, you pay attention to the little things.

So maybe we've gotten softer with age.

Maybe our eye has evolved.

Maybe importing Dollar and Godzillah simply made us question something we'd always done because… well, that's how it had always been done.

Whatever the reason, our philosophy today is pretty simple:

If the dog is amazing and the tail is beautiful, we keep it.

If the tail isn't helping the picture, we'll make a different decision.

And every now and then we'll keep an imperfect one anyway—because the dog matters more than the tail.

After all these years breeding Olde English Bulldogges, we've learned there are times to change things…

…and there are times to leave beautiful things alone. 🧬✨

A GOOD TAIL IS A FLEX. 🐂

— Chris + Gina