Why do English bull terrier have long noses? The Ultimate Guide

Features of the Bull Terriers Nose

The Bull Terriers muzzle is lengthy, solid, and has a good scissor bite. The nose is bent upwards, curving away from the top of the head. At the tip, it gently turns downwards. This breed spots well-developed nostrils that help the dog breathe better during intense running.

Why do English bull terrier have long noses?

The Roman Nose is a nose with a high bridge, where the tip is pointing downwards. The black end of the nose is shaped like a mushroom sliced in half, with the nostrils curling firmly downwards and to the middle.

Some of the frequently asked questions on the internet about the Bull Terrier’s nose include:

Do Bull Terriers Have Lockjaw?

There is no evidence yet that shows that Bull Terriers can experience lockjaw. Bull terriers can be playful; if they catch something in their mouth, they may try not to let it go. Most people confuse this active act as lockjaw which it is not.

The dog standing in an extensive landscape was painted by Henry Crowther and features a dog named “Ch. Shure Thing.” “Shure Thing” was bred by Jimmy Thompson and co-owned by Thompson and Carleton Hinks, James Hinks’ grandson. He was born in 1927 and sired by one of the most-used stud dog of the day, “Ch. Dervish of Dore,” the result of a mother-to-son mating.

The change in head shape to an exaggerated Roman nose started at appear around the time of World War I, or soon afterward, as did the first appearance of colored dogs in the ring. While a change in head shape was accepted, it took some time for the colored dogs to become accepted.

In art towards the end of the 19th Century it is often difficult to differentiate between the Bull Terrier and White English, as the black-and-white drawing of a dog in profile standing by a closed door exemplifies. I’m leaning towards the Bull Terrier, but others may know better.

Eton-educated British politician and owner of a large country estate in the Midlands, Sewallis Evelyn Shirley is best known as the founder of the Kennel Club in 1873. He had his finger on the pulse of a number of dog breeds as they were emerging and being established in the middle and later years of the 19th Century. One of these breeds was the Bull Terrier that Hinks and others were establishing in nearby Birmingham on lines of fighting dogs, which at the time proliferated in the area.

George’s daughter, Maud, was to become the best known of the dynasty of Earl artists. She is considered by many to be the finest painter of purebred dogs ever, and her output of breeds knew no boundaries. The Whisky distillers James Buchanan & Co. Ltd. seized on the opportunity to commission her to complete a series of pictures to promote their brand, and the Bull Terrier and Scottish Terrier working along a riverbank is one such picture.

Why do bull terriers have an egg-shaped head?

Recipes aren’t just a bunch of ingredients. Even a culinary newbie knows that proportions and preparation play a huge role in determining whether your efforts will result in a lofty soufflé or a dense brownie.

The same philosophy applies to dogs – particularly in a breed’s formative years, when it is still, well, somewhat half-baked.

In the early 1800s, as the Victorian craze for purebred dogs began to percolate, breeders started crossing two very different kinds of dogs, both of which had interspecies antagonism as part of their job descriptions. The Bulldog, with his heavy bone, wide frame, and powerful, jutting jaw, was perfected for the blood sport of bull-baiting, which became illegal before the 19th Century was even half over. And various terriers had evolved over centuries across the British Isles to help exterminate vermin, whether twitch-nosed rats or squat-bodied badgers.

The cross-pollination of these two kinds of dogs resulted in what was called, logically, the bull and terrier. These crossbreeds, also termed half-and-halfs and half-breds, provided their breeders with the best of both worlds – the tenacity and gripping power of the Bulldog, and the gameness and agility of the terrier. When the public spectacles of bull- and bear-baiting were outlawed in the 1830s, blood sports went underground, into basements and alleyways, with the dogs pitted against each other rather than a lumbering, oversized foe.

Basically the hybrid of its day, the bull and terrier wasn’t a bona-fide breed. Rather, it was a rough outline, a starting point for several breeds, including the dogs that today we call “pitbulls.”

Another breed that descended from these rough-hewn crosses was the Bull Terrier, which was molded into a distinct breed by James Hinks of Birmingham, England.

An Irish-born shoemaker’s son, Hinks started his breeding career raising poultry and rabbits, and soon segued to the lucrative dog market. Sort of 19th-Century dogdom’s answer to the Cake Boss, dog dealers like Hinks often maintained large dog yards, where they crossed various sizes and styles of dogs to arrive at a recipe that would develop an enthusiastic following.

Like any good cook, Hinks added a dash of this and a pinch of that to make the standard bull-and-terrier formula his own. While as a rule these pragmatic, working-class dog dealers did not document their improvisations, Hinks’ son – also named James – noted that his father used Dalmatians early on to impart the Bull Terrier’s striking all-white coat.

The most successful dog dealers were also clever marketers, able to anticipate future fads and fashions.

Hinks concentrated on streamlining his dogs while retaining their density of form. Some suggest he added Greyhound or Pointer to straighten the legs, which had a tendency to bow thanks to the Bulldog’s genetic contribution. As they lost some of their bulliness, the dogs became more refined, with longer forefaces and necks, and less wrinkling and lippiness.

“In short, they became the old fighting dog civilized, with all of his rough edges smoothed down without being softened; alert, active, plucky, muscular, and a real gentleman,” recalled Hinks’ son James. “Naturally, this change brought the Bull Terrier many admirers …”

A fixture at the dog shows that were cropping up with increasing regularity, Hinks presented his “New Bull Terrier” at a Birmingham show in May 1862. As he had intuited, the public was attracted to the milky-white coat, as well as the idea of a good-natured dog that wasn’t spoiling for a fight but yet would have no problem finishing one – a concept of canine chivalry that earned the Bull Terrier the nickname the “White Cavalier.”

A few lines of rhyme penned by a terrier aficionado of the day perhaps sum it up best: “Hinks found a Bull Terrier a battered old bum/And made him a dog for a gentleman’s chum.”

Like much of England’s burgeoning middle class, the Bull Terrier may have had humble, even less than impeccable roots, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t transcend them to become a well-heeled companion. In addition to moving away from the look of a fighting dog, the Bull Terrier diluted the corresponding temperament as well, earning a reputation as a playful and exuberant fellow whose occasional streaks of independence were easily forgotten in the face of his jaunty charm.

(For his part, Hinks was apparently less amiable than the dogs he bred: In 1855, he was reportedly sent to prison for stealing rabbits from a vicar’s garden. There are also several cases of assault, among the reported victims a police officer who requested Hinks remove a crate of chickens from a walkway; an inebriated patron of the pub Hinks owned who did not take kindly to the proprietor breaking up a fight, and even a Bull Terrier that reportedly bit Hinks in the ring, though the dog’s owner maintained that Hinks was trying to eliminate the competition.)

After getting the Bull Terrier breed off to a strong start, Hinks died quite young, in his late 40s, of tuberculosis.

As the 20th Century dawned, Bull Terrier breeders began to focus keenly on the breed’s unique head, which some have compared to that of a shark for its convex planes. The dramatic profile slopes gracefully from the top of the skull to the tip of the nose without the suggestion of a stop, which is where the foreface meets the muzzle. To complement this uniquely full face, breeders strove to produce dogs with dark, deep-set, triangular eyes, imparting what today’s standard calls a “piercing glint.”

Around the same time that the Bull Terrier’s unique “egg head” began to become standardized, breeders began to introduce color into the breed. Crosses to Staffordshire Bull Terriers brought in the various colored markings and brindling that are seen in the Colored Bull Terrier variety today.

Over the years, a fair number of macho military men, from President Theodore Roosevelt to General George S. Patton, owned Bull Terriers. But true to the vision Hinks had almost a century and a half ago – of a good-natured dog that renounced his fighting family, though he was nobody’s fool – today’s Bull Terrier is proof positive that his recipe has stood the test of time.

AKC is a participant in affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to akc.org. If you purchase a product through this article, we may receive a portion of the sale.