Haubitze und Goldenboy vom Grafensprung.D)
 

It had always been my aspiration to breed healthy goodlooking bulldogs with their typical bulldog temperament. However in the course of time I was forced to realize that increasingly a deviation from the original standard took place, a fact that prompted me to write a book "The English Bulldog - A Breed Portrait" and to draw the attention to this fateful development which was aimed mainly at the exterior of the dogs with great disregard to the health aspects.

For some time I tried to breed a somewhat lighter and more athletic type through rigorous selection

and even though I was able to achieve that goal, I was still not satisfied with some of the features like resilience, breathing, natural whelping etc. The venerable animal expert, Dr. h.c. Hans Räber who deplorably has passed away but with whom I often exchanged ideas about these problems, explained to me that just through selection I would never be able to obtain a considerable improvement due to the loss of important gene which are responsible for health and fitness. These could only be brought back through outcrossing.

These discussions made me all the more determined to execute my wish to infuse new blood. In order not to diverge too far from the English Bulldog type I decided to have a closer look at the Olde English Buldogge (OEB) and found out that this breed would be very suitable for my purpose because it had been created by serious cross-breeding of breeds with an inherent great amount of the old Bulldog blood. The in America popular Leavitt line of OEBs which by now has become well known also in Europe is being pure bred since 1971.

After seriously considering the matter from all sides I decided in 2000 to seek permission from the Swiss Kennel Club through the Swiss Club for English Bulldogs to cross-breed my English Bulldogs with OEBs with the idea  in mind to mate the thus created dogs at a later stage with pure bred English Bulldogs in order to achieve the much desired improvement of health. The permission was granted and I started off with great enthusiasm. Based on personal visits with breeders and of dog shows in America I bought two OEB dogs and two bitches and on July 8, 2001 the first litter (OEB Birchwood's Spike x EB Pickwick Lady Pinkarella) was born which already proved to be very promising.

Later on it turned out that England as holder of the English Bulldog standard would not allow the breeding back of these cross-breeds. Because the thus in the meantime born dogs - Old Type Pickwick Bulldogs - as I named them at that time, fully convinced the responsible people at the Swiss Kennel Club but even more so their new owners the Swiss Kennel Club permitted in September 2004 the creation of a new bulldog breed under the name

CONTINENTAL BULLDOG