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About Doggehouse
(A young Rowland with family bullmastiffs in the early 1960s) My parents were born and raised in South Wales between the two world wars, my late father also living in Bradford for a while. My father's family had a couple of bullmastiffs and dad got his love of bullbreeds from his experiences with these dogs. It may interest Bulldog enthusiasts to know that in Wales bullmastiffs were often known as "Gafaelgi", meaning "holding dog" or "grip dog". This reflected the bullmastiff's original purpose as a "catch dog" for two-legged prey such as poachers and burglars. Bullmastiffs were originally very popular in England as game-keepers' watchdogs. In the 1950s my parents moved to London to work and they became the owners of a succession of bullmastiffs.
(Above: Photos of Rowland and family, 1966 to 1972) As I entered adulthood my interests focused on bull terriers of various types; I loved their spirit. Over the coming years I enjoyed the company of various bull terrier type dogs; dogs just don’t come much better than a good feisty terrier. My wife Margo and I have a long history in bullbreeds and between us we have owned and bred some good examples. Our interests and philosophies are very close.
(Above: Rowland, in 1973 with Quintin and in 1987 with APBT pup Minnie)
(Uzi, 1988-2002) Our first introduction to the breed Though our paths were yet to cross, in the late 1980s Margo and I both became aware of a breed we had not heard of before: the American Bulldog. According to the sales pitch, this was apparently a breed that combined athleticism and spirit with physical substance. It would be some years more before either of us would own one of these dogs and be able to judge for ourselves.
(Cross-bred terrier "Clarissa" and "Prudence", Rowland's first American Bulldog) As time passed and we learned a little more about the American Bulldog, we found it to be a very complex picture that mostly did not live up to all the hype surrounding the breed. Unlike most other breeds there are two basic distinct types of American Bulldog ("Bully"/"Classic" and "Standard") and both types can be further divided into various strains. Furthermore, Bully and Standard types of dog are widely interbred and popularly known as "Hybrids". In fact the majority of bulldogs out there nowadays are probably the so-called hybrids.
The variety of type within the breed is something of a double-edged sword: On the one hand, the range of types means that there are bulldogs to suit a wide range of tastes and purposes, however one of side-effects is that this has sometimes led to disharmony between factions favouring different types/lines of bulldog. The newcomer to the breed who visits American Bulldog internet message boards will soon discover that the Bulldog community can unfortunately sometimes be a fractious place. Although Margo and I still have a couple of bulldogs, we no longer have any direct involvement with the breed....
(Rowland's Mum and Dad, January 2005)
(Rowland's late father)
Thanks are due to all the following people for advice, support or practical help over the years: (in alphabetical order) Colin Brown Ralph Citarella Lem Miller Alan Scott Kenny Taylor Paul Wood Our parents and many others...
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