The most important decision about a French Bulldog’s health gets made before the dog ever comes home, by the person choosing it. That is the quietly radical idea behind a small movement of breeders in the Netherlands who are reshaping the Frenchie into a dog with a longer snout, a real tail, and the ability to breathe at rest. Their work matters for a reason that has nothing to do with where you buy a dog: it has produced a practical checklist that lets any buyer tell a healthy flat-faced dog from a struggling one, on sight, in a few minutes. Laws move slowly. An informed buyer moves the market today.
The checklist, first
Most coverage of the “healthier Frenchie” debate ends with the breeders. Let’s start with the part you can actually use. Dr. Kelly Kessen, a veterinarian and campaigner with the Dutch animal-rights nonprofit Dier&Recht, offers a set of red flags to check on any flat-faced dog before you commit:
- Noise at rest. Snoring, gasping, or rasping while the dog is simply lying there signals a blocked airway. A healthy dog at rest is quiet.
- Nostrils. Pinched, partially, or fully closed nostrils mean the dog cannot move enough air. Look for open, round nostril openings.
- Nasal folds. A deep skin fold across the muzzle can become inflamed, and the hairs on it can poke and irritate the eyes.
- Visible eye whites. If you can see the whites of the eyes when the dog looks straight ahead, the eye sockets are too shallow and the eyes are exposed and vulnerable.
- Eyelid closure. Eyes that cannot fully close dry out and get damaged.
- The skull-to-snout ratio. A ratio under 0.30 (30 percent) means the airway is too short. Measure from the tip of the nose to where the muzzle meets the face, then from that point to the back of the head, and divide the second number by the first. Higher is better.
That last measurement is the kind of thing breeders and welfare scientists use, and you can do a rough version of it with a phone photo. The point of the whole list is the same: you do not need a vet degree to spot the difference between a dog that breathes and a dog that suffers. You need to know where to look.
To make the stakes visceral, Kessen has a demonstration. Clip a clothespin over your own nostrils and try to go about your business.
“You will be gasping for air because you cannot breathe and talk at the same time,” she says. “You cannot eat with this thing on your nose. Do you want your eyes popping out? Do you want to snore all the time?”
The breeder proving it can be done differently
The checklist is not theoretical, because someone is breeding to it. Chantal Wageveld runs Hawbucks French Bulldogs in Rockanje, the Netherlands, and her dogs are the counterexample to the idea that a Frenchie has to be a wheezing potato.
Wageveld came to the breed young and a little naively. “When you’re that young, you don’t really know anything,” she says with a laugh, “so you take some quizzes, and you’re like, ‘Oh yes, Frenchies!’” Her first Frenchie, Quinta, died at nine from spinal complications, a sadly common Frenchie problem. Her second, Tyke, turned out unusually athletic, and showing him opened her eyes to the priorities of traditional breeders. “They didn’t really want to go the athletic route,” she says. “They really didn’t like that type at all.” At the shows, she felt, “people focused on ribbons and earning money from breeding,” not on whether the dogs could function.
A veterinary nurse by training, Wageveld began breeding in 2016 and has now welcomed her fifth litter. She breeds her Frenchies for longer muzzles and necks, no respiratory noise at rest, and actual tails, a trait Kessen considers essential because dogs use their tails to communicate emotion. Her clinical background, she says, is part of what sets her apart from peers who go through the motions of health testing without understanding it. “I noticed that some breeders did the testing and X-rays, but they didn’t know how to read those X-rays,” she says. Too often, she adds, “health” is a sales pitch with nothing behind it.
Why the law alone won’t fix this
The Netherlands banned breeding excessively flat-faced dogs in 2014, though the specific criteria were not published, and enforcement did not really begin, until 2019. That same year the Dutch Kennel Club became the first in the world to stop registering a slate of brachycephalic breeds. The Netherlands is not alone in pushing back: in 2022, a court in Norway ruled that breeding Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and English Bulldogs in their current form violated the country’s animal-welfare law, a landmark decision (later partly softened for Bulldogs on appeal) that put the whole question of extreme conformation on the map across Europe.
But legislation has a gap that buyers can see clearly. As Kessen points out, even where breeding flat-faced dogs is illegal, owning, selling, and importing them usually is not. Dier&Recht wants to close that gap and see similar rules spread across Europe. Until that happens, the enforcement mechanism with real teeth is demand. A buyer who can spot a pinched nostril and walks away does something a statute struggles to do.
A path that draws real anger
None of this has been frictionless, even at home. Wageveld says her approach rankled traditionalists from the start. “Some breeders loved it, and other breeders hated it,” she says. At one point, people posted photos of her dog Yara in “mockery posts,” spreading misinformation and rumors about her breeding.
And plenty of owners simply do not believe their own dog has a problem. “People say, ‘Oh, my dog doesn’t have problems,’” Wageveld says. “But when you put them next to any normally built dog, there is such a difference. They’re like potatoes, the Frenchies. They’re as flexible as a potato.” That denial is exactly what the checklist is meant to cut through: side by side, against a dog with a functional airway, the difference is impossible to miss.
What this means if you want a Frenchie
If your heart is set on the breed, two things follow from all of this. First, consider starting with local shelters and breed-specific rescues, where flat-faced dogs in need of homes are not in short supply. Second, wherever you find your dog, run the checklist. Ask to see the parents breathe and move. Look at nostril width and muzzle length before you look at how cute the puppy is. Wageveld now spends real time on social media teaching exactly this, because she believes informed buyers are the actual lever.
“If people are educated, they ask breeders questions about their dogs’ health,” she says. “And if breeders don’t get away with it anymore, then they won’t do it anymore, because it doesn’t sell.”
The encouraging part is that none of this requires giving up the dog you love. A Frenchie with a longer nose is still unmistakably a Frenchie. They will be cute no matter how long their noses get. The only thing the checklist asks you to give up is the version that cannot breathe.
References
- Eurogroup for Animals. “Landmark Ruling Against Unethical Dog Breeding in Norway.” 2022.
- Royal Kennel Club. “The Kennel Club Welcomes Lifting of the Norwegian Breeding Ban for Bulldogs.” 2022.
- Raad van Beheer (Dutch Kennel Club). Statement on Short-Muzzled Breeds, 2019.
- Hawbucks French Bulldogs. hawbucks.nl.
