Eagle Wing Ring in Antique Silver 925

Handmade silver ring, open and modelable.

It was originally bred (early nineteenth century) as a fighting dog against bulls; for more than a hundred years, the selection has been made for character and therefore the English bulldog is now in all respects a companion dog.

A theory on the birth of the English bulldog claims that the molossers used for bullfighting were crossed with the pug, a breed whose popularity had enormously grown in Great Britain starting from 1860 thanks to the importation of a male and a pure line mare directly from China in order to get a pet dog. According to this theory, the great promoter of this evolution of the breed was the breeder Bill George (1802-1881). However, this theory is categorically denied by genetic studies published in the US magazine "American Scientist".

We know instead that the English bulldog was selected in the late 19th century by the old English bulldog, a breed used for dog fighting and bull-baiting . Over the centuries, attempts were made to train and select more and more the physique and temperament of these dogs for combat, creating a progressive physical mutation and genetically fixing those anomalies that were however suitable for bull-baiting. The legs became shorter to crawl better and to grab the bull's horns more efficiently; he increased the prognathism of the muzzle to ensure a stronger grip on the jaw; the wrinkles above the nose ensured the flow of the bull's blood so as not to prevent breathing, so that the dog could remain "caught in the bull" for a long time, breathing without difficulty. The dogs most resistant to pain, the bravest and the most ferocious were selected for breeding. Generation after generation, the profile of a dog that gained fame all over the world for its squat and brachycephalic appearance and its unparalleled ferocity in bullfighting was thus accentuated.

The official date that marks the watershed for the history of the breed was 11 September 1894, when two typical bulldogs were competed in an endurance test. The athletic King Orry, perhaps one of the last examples of old English bulldog; and the stocky Dockleaf, probably one of the first examples of English bulldogs, competed in a walk over a distance of 20 miles. King Orry won the challenge, while Dockleaf collapsed.

After over a hundred years of breed selection, made almost exclusively on its temperament, today's English Bulldog is in all respects an excellent companion dog.

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