Bullistik® Brood Bitches
oh, the engine that runs the entire machine, our GIRLS!
Regardless of the fact that I have stated, very publicly, that I am boy crazy and in awe of my stud dogs, the truth of the matter is that behind every great stud dog, there is an even greater brood bitch, and without those spectacular bitches, there are no pups, no breeding program, and no continuance of bloodlines.
That being said, it is no secret that the girls that I keep as a part of my breeding program, are not of the fine bone, petite, feminine variety.
My girls definitely have heavy bone, plenty of substance, and head pieces that would have one wonder is that a little girl frog?
Yes, some might say that my girls are not feminine enough or are too ‘doggy’ looking, but if you are like me and believe that the standard calls for French Bulldogs (all of them) to be heavy boned, and that the French Bulldog should resemble a Bulldog in miniature, except for the large, erect “bat ears” that are the breed’s trademark feature, then you understand why my girls are just a slightly smaller version of Bullistik’s stud dogs.
Suffice it to say, I prefer my French BULLDOGS to favor their Bulldog cousins and not Boston Terriers: no stick figure Frenchies at Bullistik®!
Regardless of color, standard or non-standard, my Bullistik® girls (past and present) are stocky and compact with wide chests, deep briskets, spring of rib, muscular thighs, and let us not forget those flat between the ears skulls and wide, deep, flat, well laid back, wrinkled mugs.
Fabia was my first cocoa female Frenchie and she went on to produce my gorgeous cocoa fawn, Decadence, and then Decadence was bred to my homegrown black & tan stud dog, Thrash, to produce the flaming black mask, red fawn, SpitFire.
Generation after generation, the girls at Bullistik® are recognizable as part of a specific bloodline, the Bullistik® brand, with their hallmark conformation, and signature beauty.
AND, then there are the girls responsible for the TriColor gene in my breeding program, and that all began with the lovely, Moonlight, a Blue Mask, Blue Fawn daughter of the infamous Blue & Tan stud dog, MOON.
Moonlight, was the first female to add the ‘at’ (tan points) gene to my line. She was bred to my first tricolor stud dog, Tycoon, and that union blessed me with my gorgeous bred-by Black & Tan pied girl, Denied, and then Denied went on to produce my delicious Blue & Tan girl, HellCat.
From every litter produced by the girls at Bullistik®, only the very best, whether that be a future stud dog or brood bitch, are kept to further the bloodline, and continue my breeding program.
I am very particular about temperament, structure, and health but also about color and/or patterns that I keep in my program.
As I am slightly obsessed with clear points (tan markings) in my tricolor Frenchies, I made a point of not using brindle (kbr) in my program because I did not want to wind up with ‘trindle’ Frenchies as the bright, clean, tan markings that I am so crazy about become muddy and often indiscernible if brindle is in the mix.
AND, brindle is one of those “take over” colors because KBR is dominant. So a Frenchie with 2 copies of kbr, can only produce brindle pups regardless of what color mate they are bred to. For those brindle lovers, that might be a good thing, but for me, not so much.
BUT, never say never! Because after years of slowly removing the brindle (kbr) loci from my breeding program, along came a fabulous boy named ‘MilkDud’. He is brindle, but he is also ‘coco, atat, Dd, Eme, kbrky, nS’, and he is a son of one of my bred-by brindle girls, Nikita, and a grandson of my very first cocoa brindle (kbr/ky) stud dog, Chucky. Breeding programs, like life, are an evolution. As much as I prefer, clear tan points, and want to avoid brindle overload, there is no way in hell I could walk away from a gorgeous chocolate trindle boy like Bullistik All That Bling! ‘MilkDud’.
Although I have always loved pieds, I am also a stickler for full eyeliner and nose pigment, probably from my days of working my butt off to try to finish a half hooded pied in the AKC show ring: his name was AKC CH. Tea-D’s Bite The Bullet ‘Assassin’.
It would seem, Frenchie judges are not fans of ‘pink eye rims’ either. So, I only breed piebalds that are ‘full hooded’. They must have color over both eyes, or they don’t stay at Bullistik®, no matter how gorgeous their conformation may be. Case in point, the lovely Denied. It would have killed me to part with her if she had been half hooded, but I would have. Thank goodness I didn’t have to make that choice.
When it comes to those wonderful tricolor French Bulldogs, it is always my preference to keep a dog or bitch that is Eme; carries 1 copy of the mask, and 1 copy of cream.
With the ‘e’ cream allele in the quotient, I get those fabulous tan eyebrows and cheeks on my tricolors, like Troy has. But that cream allele only affects the head markings (cheeks and eyebrows) as there is only 1 copy of the mask ‘Em’ gene. It does not completely diminish the tan leg or chest markings, but does affect the shade of those markings.
So, when I have a tricolor pup that is as fabulous as my blue & tan gal, HellCat, the fact that she is EmEm (2 copies of mask allele), and has very little in the way of tan markings on her head, I am more than okay with the fact that she is not carrying the ‘e’ allele.
Bottom line is that I love French Bulldogs in all their glorious natural occurring colors, but for my personal breeding program, I have a hard pass on ‘brindle’ in any color (blue, chocolate, lilac, tricolor, standard) and mis-marked piebalds in any color.