The origin
The fame of this new specimen didn’t last long in the British society of that time.
The British were definitely fond of their national dog, so they considered this new pet as a scrap of the great British breed.
The Toy-Bulldog (so-called in that period) had known unexpected fame, and suddenly, it was erased from the list of recognized breeds.
This pet considered an only bad experiment, was sold for a few pennies as a simple home dog.
Precisely from this decline and due to particular events that our french puppy met his well-deserved success.
The lace’s merchants of Nottingham, who left their country due to the economic crisis landed in the north of France with these particular bulldogs that the British wanted to get rid of , as that the fighting was over (by the way, it continued clandestinely).
The adoptive homeland offered to this dog the well-deserved redemption, it became the best companion of the Parisian salons.
During the end of the nineteenth century, there was a curious conflict between France and England to recognize its authorship.
At last , the British community refused to register this crossbreed, called "French Toy Bulldog", in the English bulldog club, because the believed that the French didn't maintain the purity of the breed.
In particular, their cross-breeding had changed the bearing of the ears.
The first Toy Bulldog Club was opened in 1898.
Even if, there are difficulties in reconstructing the history of this breed, we can say that the British "provided" the genetic source, but it was the French that created and stabilized it as we know it today
The spread wasn’t immediate.
The first "owners" were French modest breeders as butchers, wine merchants, and other modest professions.
As the Official World Dog Committee still didn’t recognize this little bulldog, they founded an unpretentious club by themselves in 1880.
The few specimens began to be widespread among eccentric characters in the social life of France, such as artists and the owners of the Parisian brothels.
It small size and it curious appearance starting to get the attention of some local newspapers as novelties of the canine world.
At the end of the nineteenth century
It was an American journalist, Gordon Bennett, who founded the first official club in France, entitled "Meeting of French Bouledogue Amateurs".
The official standard of the French bulldog was having straight ears.
The club mentioned above only opened in 1898, but two years earlier a rich American owner , during his visit to France, probably under the name of Mr. Phelps fell in love with these little bulldogs and imported them to start a breeding, the first in the States.
The trend of fashion launched had an immediate success and in the early twentieth,the first European clubs dedicated to French bouledogues began to flourish.
And in Italy?
The diffusion of the small bulldog started,as we said, in the first part of twentieth century and our country has not been less important: The first specimen was imported in 1911 by the Marquis De Mari and will remain, until the end of the thirties, a fine breed dog exclusivity for the Italian aristocracy.
The first Italian club was opened just before the Second World War but had a short life: it ended its activity during the war period and was no longer reconstituted.
After the war, few specimens were imported. The French bouledogues registered in the Italian Herd Books from the 1950s to the 1960s didn’t even exceed fifty in total.
The breed, that became extremely rare, began to flourish again in the 1980s with the birth of new breedings and the presence of some specimens of various dog races.
The interest of Italian dog lovers began to grow again but only after the second half of the nineties, it increased considerably.
The myth of a breed ,as the french bulldog , showed us that from nothing it became a true prototype of beauty and fidelity, unchanged up to our days.
