About Richard Barker

Living with French Bulldogs

Our French Bulldog Lyla came home on 2 October 2020, a tiny puppy and a present for our eldest son's eleventh birthday. She arrived in the middle of a house move and a new baby, and she took all of it in her stride. That easy-going, people-first temperament is the thing nobody quite prepares you for: Frenchies do not just live alongside your family, they install themselves at the centre of it.

Raising Lyla is where most of what I know actually comes from. The 4am toilet-training stretches. Learning the difference between a Frenchie that is too hot and one that is just being dramatic. The skin folds, the snoring, the reverse sneezing that terrifies you the first time and becomes routine the tenth. None of that is theory on this site. It is lived.

Breeding Lyla: one litter, done properly

In the summer of 2022, once Lyla was around two years old and fully mature, we bred her once. Her litter arrived around 23 July 2022: three beautiful puppies, Kennel Club registered, raised in our home rather than a shed or a unit.

I want to be honest about it, because breeding this breed is not the cheerful business social media makes it look. We lost one of the three. Anyone who tells you French Bulldog breeding is easy money has either been lucky or is not telling you everything. It is a brachycephalic breed with real risks at every stage, for the mother and the puppies, and that experience shaped how this site talks about buying, breeding and health. It is why the buying guides here push so hard on health testing and responsible breeders, and why I have no patience for the "rare colour" trade.

We bred Lyla once and only once. She has since been spayed, so there will be no more litters. This site does not sell dogs and never will.

How I write about health, and what I am not

I am an experienced owner and a careful researcher. I am not a vet, and I will never pretend to be one. That distinction matters more on a French Bulldog site than almost any other breed, because so much of owning one is medical.

So here is the standard I hold this site to. Every health article is grounded in published veterinary and welfare sources: the Royal Veterinary College's VetCompass research on the breed, the PDSA, the Kennel Club, and the British Veterinary Association's work on flat-faced dogs. Where I cite a figure or a finding, I name where it comes from so you can check it. Nothing here replaces your own vet, and every health page says so.

If something on this site helps you catch a problem early, ask your breeder a better question, or simply enjoy your Frenchie more, it has done its job.

The business behind the site

French-bulldog.co.uk is published by Resolute Ventures Group Ltd. The site earns its keep through advertising and affiliate partnerships, including pet insurance and products we think are worth your attention. Those links never change what we write. Where a page contains them, it says so clearly at the top.

You can always reach me through the contact page. If there is something about French Bulldogs you wish this site covered and it does not yet, tell me, and I will write it.

For full details of how articles are researched, updated and reviewed, see the editorial standards page.

Richard Barker
Owner and editor, French-bulldog.co.uk