Our crossed Bostons are mostly a part of The Minibull Project, because the Boston Terrier is far healthier than all Bulldog types, and because Bulldogs featured heavily in the original breeds used to create the Boston Terrier, we use them heavily in the program, we add diversity with outcrossing then coming back and back to Bostons, then outcrossing again and again, then outcrossing ect, a long and complicated program I need not go into here.
Im just putting these graphs up because of course we sell the cross pups not kept for the Project.
Many people just don't get that cross does not always mean HALF this and HALF something else.
Below are photos and graphs so you can see plainly the progression, as far as Boston content in some lines goes, we will also, in our Bostons, breed some lines on, back to pure
( 5th cross ) reason ? to keep our colours and add diversity to pure lines and to ensure our Bostons stay as healthy as possible.
We do have plenty of straight Boston Terriers and do not need to cross them, we do it because it adds to diversity which in turn adds to general vigour in those lines. We found this more or less accidentally as a side effect of our involvement in The Minibull Project.
Half bred Boston ( 1 st Cross ) below to start with
Three Quarters Bostons ( 2nd cross ) Below
Our Boston Terrier crosses have been around since 2000, bred initially to be a part of the Minibull Project, which most of them still are.
There will be a number of breeds in different litters, and those breeds may vary, as the idea has always been to add genetic diversity to the type of small Bulldog we wish to re-create, the real Toy Bulldogs died out due to ill health, exactly the way French Bulldogs are going today.
To use other breeds brings in desired traits and goes away from undesirable ones, as well as adding the diversity lacking in many pure breeds due to the over use of line/in breeding and show champion or popular sires, over the years since stud books were closed the gene pool of most breeds has suffered badly, the result are breed specific genetic faults as well as lower immune systems and a general fall in robust individuals, such dogs are far more prone to disease as well as certain genetic faults becoming entrenched and more common in some breeds than in others.
Each breed will have its own problems, all carefully bred in over many generations of nice ‘pure’ breeding.
This is why DNA tests for some of those specific tests have been developed, no company spends millions developing a test for a genetic fault for the sake of backyard breeders, the faults are there in the you beaut, registered pure bred dogs trotting around at the shows and dog clubs to start with.
And those are the breeders they were developed for.
Tests are a great help in eliminating some of the 500 odd disorders linked to genes that are known to us....some, like, maybe 30
In the breeds we mostly use, about 2 of those DNA tests can be relied on, the DNA test for Juvenile cataract when done by a reliable lab gives reliable results, the DNA test for D M ( Degenerative Myelopathy ) is not yet guaranteed for our breeds of dogs, but so far we have found the test to be reliable, again, if done by a reliable lab. We do other tests too and although not guaranteed they are very helpful.
Tests alone however will not fix problems that are being bred in by breeding for extremes, short muzzles, short backs and short tails are all linked to spinal deformities, yet you will see some lines in some breeds that just keep getting shorter.
Nostrils in some are getting to be far too pinched, Google pinched nares. Look at the nares on many French Bulldogs and some Bostons, why the hell would you deliberately do this to a dog.
These are just a very few instances of why outcrossing is good for the health of the general population. I could go on but I'm not about to write a book. Just telling why we cross Boston Terriers, and having used them with great success in our Minibull Project, we have decided to go further with them to bring in a line of Boston Terriers that are not quite pure but very close to it, just to keep diversity, vigour and also breed a less extreme dog so that problems do not creep in. We do that with our strait Bostons too, but this way we can add more diversity and thus more vigour in our general population faster.
Such dogs will always be sold as what they are, crosses, even though the dogs used to breed them are compatible with the dogs used to create the Boston breed to start with, and even though after 4 crosses many breed stud books for other species will class an animal as being back to pure.
I have put up here some examples of crosses of various dogs to give an idea of what a three quarter, seven eighth, or fifteen sixteenths looks like.
Makes it easier for people who think crossed just means half this and half that to see what any given pup may look like, there will be variation of course but these dogs give you a general idea.
Two examples of pinched nares below, and one normal dog, our cross boy Mooshi on the end.
