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- Hi, I'm Davette Fournier and I am a proud owner
of the American Bulldog breed.
I'm a small boutique breeder here in northern California
and I've been breeding these beautiful creatures
for 21 years.
I bought my very first Bulldog in 1996.
Just by happenchance, I was looking for what I thought
to be an English Bulldog and I showed up to somebody's house
and it was this really short English Bulldog
and I was looking for, what I thought
to be the English Bulldog, which is now
the American Bulldogs.
I had previously been a breeder and a shower of Afghans
and, I have to say, once you own
one of these American Bulldogs,
you're an American Bulldog lover for life.
Best breed ever, great temperaments.
One of the things we loved about the breed
when we first got ours is that they are great
with children but on the flip side,
you could take them hiking, hunting,
do many things with the breed.
It was not a sissy breed by any means (laughs).
You know, at first, I just watching them with people
and family, they just are very in tune with the human.
I mean you don't have to say anything.
They just quickly are listening and learning
and following your lead.
But after I owned them for a while, I started doing
a lot more studies on them and learning a little more
about them and I was always mesmerized by the fact
that you could take your American Bulldog out
wild boar hunting and it'll pull down a wild boar
till you go there and get it, and then an hour later,
after you give it a bath, clean it up,
it'll be sitting next to your two-year-old
watching TV, it just has the ability
to be a working dog and have the ability
to be a gentle giant.
It started in late 1700s, early 1800s,
and they were all called English Bulldogs
and if you look at a lot of the old paintings
and the pottery back then of the breed,
it looks like what we see now, an American Bulldog.
The settlers brought over the working farm dogs with them
and that's what we now know was named later
the American Bulldog or coined the American Bulldog
by a couple gentlemen who in the early '60s
decided they were gonna bring this breed
back from extinction and that was JD Johnson and Alan Scott.
And there's two different types,
Johnson, which is a little more bully,
bigger head, shorter snout,
Scott, really athletic, lean, the actual working breed.
I just had the passion for the bigger head,
wider chest and I wasn't gonna be using them
for a working breed, even though that's what they are.
They were just gonna be my family pet
and I was gonna sell them to families
and I just liked the look of the Johnson.
My dogs do wanna work, they have a task.
They love it when you give them a task
but at the same time, they're okay just chilling, you know?
And I haven't owned a Scott before but just, I mean,
any time you have a dog that's 60, 80 pounds,
working dog that's active on the farm, you're gonna have
a little bit more high-strung dog for sure.
My husband and I have a vineyard here.
We have five acres and that's really when
we picked up the breeding a little bit
because living in town, we would just had one or two.
Once we moved on the property, it allowed the dogs
to be a part of all the farm work.
We actually used to strap some trailers to them
and have them go up and down with our buckets
when we'd pick grapes and put the grapes in the buckets.
They liked that, the dogs thought that was fun.
But for the most part, they get their exercise
just playing on five acres.
They like to fetch and do all the things that normal dogs do
and they like to sit in your lap.
But at the same time, if they see a predator,
they pay attention and they bark.
Oh, we get raccoons, cats, coyotes.
We we first, first moved here, lots of raccoons
and lot of coyotes but now that they're here
and walking around, the male dogs pee everywhere,
that keeps them all on the neighbor's property
instead (laughs) of ours, so it's kinda nice, yeah.
So on top of being our favorite pets,
they are meant to be our estate guardians.
They really do watch the property for us.
When we're not here, nobody better enter
our property without us here.
They will take care of business for sure.
But their looks and their intimidation usually keep people
off in itself so we're pretty lucky with that.
Our dogs in particularly and probably
most American Bulldogs, people that are going to buy dogs,
are gonna be family dogs.
They're not going to be for hunting and working on the farm.
Most are family dogs just like our dog.
They're welcome to come in the house.
Like any dog that's your pet, they would definitely live
in the house if you let them but no, they can come
in the house but they do like to spend majority
of the daylight outside running around, playing,
being outside but at nighttime, they wanna come in
where we're at and cuddle on their little dog beds.
Even though we have huge dog houses with air conditioning
and heating for them, those usually get used
when we're breeding.
For the most part, they like to be inside getting the pets,
being a family dog.
Our daily routine of our pets are that we wake up
in the morning and there they are waiting for us
on the living room floor on their dog beds
and that's where they are when we go to bed at night.
We have fun playing with them outside and they like to play
outside but they really aren't meant to be left out all day.
They are companion dogs, they like to be with
so I'm very comfortable.
My grandchildren come around, other children come around
and they'll play very gentle with the children.
It's not that I've taught them that
but they just instinctively know how to be that
but it's important that you understand
that you have a lot of time spent with the dog
to make it a social family dog.
You can't just put it in your backyard
and then expect it to be social.
The main rules, we start as a puppy stage
with all the basic sit, lay, stay, down
from jumping on people.
They are quite puppy like for longer years than most breeds.
They'll be puppy for four years
so but by the time they're a year old,
they're up to 100 pounds.
You can't have them jumping on people
so our main thing is that we teach them not to jump.
We teach them to sit any time we want to give them a treat.
We don't just give them things.
They have to work and they like that.
They like to work or have a task for the reward
but their main job is really to keep us comforting
and patrol the property for, when we have a litter
of pups here and we do it, my husband and I do it
'cause we love the breed and we will segment four months
out of the year that we have time to actually dedicate
from the pregnancy all the way through till the puppy's
eight weeks old and we spend a lot of time with the dogs
and we socialize them.
It can't be a dog that you just put to the side
and you put it in the backyard and you don't train it
from the beginning.
They actually need all their training up front.
The first six months is crucial for how they'll be
the rest of their lives.
And so in our orientation, we go through how to give them
commands and not use the word no, for instance.
Each word means something for the dog to do.
If everybody in the house, especially have a bunch
of kids and a busy family, every saying no to the dog,
the dog gets confused.
These are a working breed.
You can't put a leash on their collar.
They're gonna pull and they are extentively meant
to pull weight and pull down bulls and pull wagons
and things on farms so you have to put them in a harness
that clips from the front and not from the back.
Simple things like that that'll make your dog
nice to walk or your dog that pulls you down the road
who instinctively, if you put something on its back
back here, it's gonna wanna pull you.
Make sure that the dog has a good foundation
with the family so we're not re-homing it.
The perfect owner for any dog and I'm gonna sell to a family
would be somebody that has children, also has other dogs,
especially maybe another American Bulldog,
somebody that's owned a Bully breed before.
That's pretty important.
I won't sell my dogs to somebody who hasn't owned
a Bully breed that understands their temperament
and their needs.
I like the dog to be with kids
or with another group of dogs,
like my dogs are with each other when we're not home.
They're not lonely so but I won't sell them
to too many people unless they have
those certain qualifications, especially a family dog.
I get a lot of people call me and say,
"I wanna buy a dog and I wanna have it be my jogging dog,"
and I will tell them these dogs can run and they can run
short and fast but they're not long-term jogging dogs
so this would not be what you would want
to get this dog (chuckles) for, so but there are people
that say, "I want a protection dog.
"I'm a firefighter," "I'm a police officer."
I get quite a few police officer and firefighters
that have these long shifts, and so,
they want a dog that's intimidating, stays home
with the family, can be with the kids
but then the wife can take it for a walk with the kids
and that's really important for a family dog I think
'cause they are meant to protect.
Well, it's important to socialize this breed
and the reason is when you first get them home,
you do have to keep them close at home
until they've gotten all four of their vaccinations.
There is something I teach in my course when you pick up
your puppies that between the age of 10 weeks and 12 weeks,
you must keep the environment very serene.
No loud noises, no popping of bags, slamming of doors,
gunshots because this is that portion
of the brain that develops.
If there's anything it scares them in that two weeks,
it sticks with them for life but once you pass
the 12-week mark, they can be molded into anything
that you want and I always tell people, if you get your dog
to meet 100 people and 200 dogs in the first years
of its life, they'll be the most social dog
you'll ever have.
They need to be socialized from a young age
and with as many people, just meet and greet,
even going out in public.
They don't necessarily have to touch the dog
or see the dog but the dog needs to see people
and consider that to be normal.
The best exercise or an activity for this dog
would be, yes, walks.
They're a large-muscle dog.
They need to be walked every day.
We have a toy called the wolf stick,
essentially a stuffed animal at the end of a string
on a fishing pole, and you can give your dog
30 minutes of exercise in four minutes
with this particular instrument.
So even though my dogs have five acres to run,
we, on a daily basis, pull out that wolf stick
and spend five minutes with each dog to get their muscles
really burning because they do need that.
My dogs are on a grain feed diet.
This is important because any breed
but especially in a large mass breed like this
where there's a lot of muscle mass,
they are carnivores by genetics.
They eat vegetables and meat so a lot of these dog foods
have rice and grains and fillers in them,
so our dogs only eat grain free.
And Bulldogs, in particular, are a little gassy
so we don't allow them to have them (chuckles)
to have lamb 'cause lamb makes them gassy
and it's not bad for them but it's sure bad for you
if you're sitting around watching TV (laughs).
So we stick to the fish and the bison and the prairie,
that type of thing.
We use NutriSource but you can use anything
as long as it's grain free and also with NutriSource,
it has 500 milligrams of glucosamine in each serving,
which is super important for large-breed animal
to have that in their joints.
We, as a boutique breeder, we have always kept
only about four dogs, three females and a male around,
two males around, then you have to kennel them
and we kinda like our dogs being pets as well
as our stud dog so we tend to keep one male around
and three females, so right now, we have two females
and one male, our senior citizen, she passed away
shortly ago, Miss Fiona, who we still have, who is seven,
her mommy passed away.
We have Cricket, who is now four.
She's the one that has a two-year waiting list
for her puppies already and our dear Hank the Tank.
He's 3 1/2 years old, he's 128 pounds.
He is definitely Johnson, he comes out of Jose Lopez,
just a very well-known breeder for 30 years, Manstoppers.
Hank is got amber eyes, he's more of a red.
We call him red and white with amber eyes, super mellow.
I'll never forget when I got him for the very first time.
I met Mr. Lopez who had moved here from out of state.
He moved to California and brought all his dogs with me.
He had a job transfer or his wife did or something.
They were all being housed at his friend's horse ranch
and I go there and there's all these male dogs
in this arena, barking and barking.
And I see this white dog just sitting at the top
of five tires, not barking, not being affected by anything
by the chaos and I said, I don't know when that dog's
gonna have a puppy but when that dog up there on the mound,
Obi-Wan, is his name, has a dog, I want a dog from him.
That's gonna be my next male stud
so that's where Hank the Tank comes from (chuckles).
If I'm not here, he is Mr. On Guard.
He's very intimidating looking and the girls,
who are a little bit more of a watchdog, if you will,
if the girls run, he's on it.
If they're not doing much activity,
he doesn't do much activity but when it's time
to be serious, he's a pretty intimidating dog
but at the same time, like I said,
I could have my four-year-old granddaughter crawling on him,
riding on him, being a family dog and they're not even here
all the time but he just instinctively knows
as soon as they get here, be gentle.
Let's talk about Miss Fiona, we call her Princess Fiona.
We actually kept her for a very special reason.
Her mom also who just recently passed away
was one of our breeding females
and her very, very first litter in 2009
is where Princess Fiona comes from
and we knew that we wanted a male stud
so we paid JD Johnson Kennels Zak-ar to be the stud
for our Malibu, which is where Princess Fiona comes in
and so she has a pretty incredible bloodline
behind her as well.
She's all white, Princess Fiona means basically white beauty
in Gaelic and white wine in Latin and we do grow white wine
in our vineyard so that's how she got her name.
Cricket, we have Cricket, Miss Cricket.
Miss Cricket is our now leading breeding dog.
She makes quite large females (chuckles) and ironically,
she's a special gift because her entire litter,
'cause the lady didn't know what she was doing,
died of Parvo and she's the only survivor.
And it was just because by chance I picked her up
a little bit earlier than everybody else
and had removed her from the scene and apparently,
the rest of the dogs were there for another couple weeks
and a visiting dog came onto the property
and tracked Parvo and they all were put down to sleep.
So she's the lonely survivor so we call her
a pretty special dog (chuckles).
So in general, the American Bulldog, if I could advise
anybody for a family pet, I would highly encourage you,
I mean we bought our very first one 20 years ago,
21 years ago and never looked back,
absolutely the best breed you'll ever own.
I get a lot of folks calling me on the phone
and just telling me, "This is the best dog I've ever owned
"and I've owned many breeds."
They are so conducive for family, for protection.
They're loving, they're strong, they are working dogs.
There's a lot of very good things about them
and that's the reason I started breeding.
I wanted other people to have the opportunity
to have this dog, this breed in their family
because they are great family dogs
and I would highly encourage it.
However, like with any large breed, you need to do
your homework, that's what my website was put there,
American Bulldog Farm, because we live on a farm,
not because we're a breeding farm
but because we live on a farm and it's there for,
there's a lot of good information
on my website and now with social media and out there
on YouTube, plenty of information about the breed.
Do your homework and make sure it's perfect for your family.
It's perfect for our family.
We love them, they're the best thing ever
but not for everybody, yeah.