The answer is very simple. The breed standard, for any breed of dog, is representative of the healthiest specimen of that particular breed you can get. Period. The farther away from matching that standard a dog gets, the unhealthier a dog gets. Even a pet owner does not want to buy a dog that he/ she knows a lot of time and money will be spent at the veterinarian for. Bulldogs are expensive enough to breed or buy, why look to spend up to thousands more $ on a dog you know is going to have health problems? Why encourage breeders of bad dogs to continue to breed unsound animals by buying dogs from them? People do breed bad dogs, and do not care because people are still buying them from them.
I also hear people brag all of the time that their Bulldog has a HUGE beautiful head (like the bulldogs in cartoons). This is a pet peeve of mine. If you “stack” a dog (a standing pose used in showing dogs) and look at the dog from the front, the outside dimension of the head should be able to fit between the space between the front legs. This also means you should see “turn of shoulder” outside of the dimension of the head. If you do not then it is a major fault. It is NOT correct, and absolutely nothing to be bragging about. It’s in the breed standard. Period, end of discussion. Also a too small of head is incorrect. The head should fill that spaces between the front legs. I guarantee that if the head is too large or too small there are also other problems there, and that means potential health problems for the dog.
I have read about import dogs, what about these?
Ok, I mentioned these just above. Scary! Stay away, far far away. Think of the puppy miller, now multiply all of the bad things you know or have heard about them. These dogs really are of nefarious origins.
What about buying a bulldog through the internet?
That depends. Many good breeders have websites. These are typically brag pages, and are often linked with or have educational material on them. Often times they become more than just brag pages because of public demand. Our site has developed that way. At first it was just pictures and short paragraphs bragging about how proud we are of our dogs. Then after literally getting thousands of emails asking us about puppies we developed and added our puppy applications to lessen the load on myself and my email inbox. So, getting back to the point, to buy a puppy from a breeder like this you are still going to have to deal directly with the breeder and be screened as to whether the breeder thinks you would provide a good home for the pup. The breeders will not just charge you a price, get shipping info, and send a pup. Often you will be placed on a waiting list with these breeders because they do not breed mass quantities of dogs. Ethical breeders will never just ship you a dog, but will require you to come and pick the dog up in person, and if you refuse, then no puppy for you.
Then there are others, who are really puppy millers in disguise. They do a good job of bragging their dogs up, and making you feel all warm and fuzzy about them. However, look closer. They will say send us a check, money order, or credit card number, and we will ship your puppy to you. Or if you drive halfway here to me, I will meet you along the highway and give you your pup at the truck stop. These breeders do not want you to see the rest of their dogs, folks. They do not want you to see how many they have. They do not want you to see how these dogs are treated and taken care of. And if you knowingly buy a pup from people like this thinking you are rescuing a dog, you really are not. You may have saved that one dog, but you put money in that breeder’s pocket and enabled and encouraged him or her to go breed a bunch more.
The bottom line is to research and be aware of the type of breeder you are buying a dog from. This will go a long ways in telling you how healthy of a dog you are getting.