Now my houseguest has another question… Why, in the 1920s, did French Bulldogs wear collars made of badger hair?
(There’s an old cartoon drawing of one at the bottom of this page http://members.aol.com/PBarret/index2.html ).
Looks like a standard fighting collar to me. You still see similar collars used by people who use dogs to hunt wolves or pigs, and amongst fighting dogs. The idea is that it protects the dogs neck and stops it from getting killed. The studs make it difficult for another dog to get a grip even on the collar itself.
I’d guess it was a hangover from when the dogs were still being used as pit fighters (which is of course what they were bred for). You still see plenty of bull terriers and pitbulls owned by acertain type of person wearing the same collars.
If youre talking about the image at the very bottom of the page, yes that’s a typical “fighting collar”, and they are still made and used today, though I have never seen one on a Frenchie. (I am an English Bulldog owner, and I HAVE seen people put them on Bullies to make them look “tougher”, which irritates me for some reason) If youre talking about the image on the Valentine Dog, I have no clue what that is around the poor dogs neck…never saw a thing like it before.
I’ve never seen a dog wearing anything like that before either. The closest thing I’ve seen to it would be the elizabethan collar
