Originally Posted by Mojodmonky1
Q for your French Bulldog owners.
How are they on shedding? Looking to get my first dog, but not sure of what breed I should be looking for. Initially I was considering an english bulldog, but I heard that a lot of them tend to have bad hips and I have a 2 story condo. Not sure if that is going to be too much of an issue for the dog to get up and down the stairs.
Are french bulldogs fairly easy to train? Since I have NO experience training dogs, I was planning on taking it to a boarding obedience school as soon as I get it (the wife and I both work full time, so we won't have much time during the day to work on training it). How are they in terms of chewing up the house? I dont want to leave the puppy cooped up in its crate for extended periods of time, so when I get the dog back from the boarding school I would like to leave it in my guest bedroom and just shut the door until I get back. This would just be temporary until the puppy is fully trained. Once its housebroken and trained not to bark, my wife can take the dog to work with her (dog friendly office). Is this a bad idea? Am I going to come back to a chewed up room?
Ideally, I would like to get a Silver or Choco Lab. Does anyone here have experience with a lab in an apt/condo/townhouse? My place isn't terribly small (1600 sq ft) but I dont know if its going to be enough space for the dog to live "comfortably". I would definitely walk the dog in the morning before work, and ideally would like to take the dog on my evening runs (2-5 miles) a couple times a week. Is that enough exercise for a lab?
Thanks in advance.
This will be semi-short since I have to take off shortly:
The shedding isn't horrible. We have white floors in the bathroom and you can definitely see the hairs there....otherwise we don't notice it a ton.
The hip thing is a bulldog problem..french or english.
Again, it's a bulldog...they're stubborn, but if you work at it you can train them. This is my first dog and we have him doing the general stuff (he's 2)...sit, shake...he goes to the door and runs through the blinds when he has to go to the bathroom so we know when to take him out.
I haven't seen or heard a quieter dog in my life. He whimpers a little when it's time to eat and when we don't listen to him when he needs to go out...otherwise that's it. He barks MAYBE once every few weeks. Snoring and farting are about the only sounds we hear out of him.
Don't really have any chewing problems. He will tear up magazine and paper towel if you leave them out, but he's never had at a pillow or clothes. He gnaws on shoestrings every once in a while..but that's it.
They have to be the best apartment dogs you could want.
For those looking for dogs, the Animal Planet channel has a show called Dogs 101, tells you ALOT about different breeds. They do 4-5 breeds per show. We were thinking about getting a frenchie to begin (debating between that, huskie, and a boston) with, then saw that show and knew that was the breed to get.
