Everything You Need to Know About Pied French Bulldogs: Traits, Care, and Where to Find Them
For French Bulldogs, pied is considered a breed standard pattern and has been a part of the breed since its origin. Pied enthusiasts love the unique patterns given to each puppy. For many breeders, this will add variety to their litter making each puppy unique and giving another layer of dimension to a breed that has a ton of character. We’ll go over the different types of pieds, care tips, and where to find a pied French Bulldog.
Litter of Standard Coat and Fluffy Pied French Bulldog Puppies
What is Pied?
Pied is simply a “cow-like” color pattern. It is a recessive gene represented by “s” which causes a lack of melanin in certain areas of the dog. In French Bulldogs, the under color will always be white and the color of the patches will differ. For example, breed standard pieds would be brindle pied, cream pied, & fawn pied. Out of breed standards would be lilac pied, cocoa pied, blue pied, rojo pied, isabella pied and pied merle.
What is Irish Pied?
When someone is talking about irish pied they are referring to one of two definitions. I’ll list them both below and let you decide how you would like to use this term:
One is a visually pied dog that has only one copy of pied in its DNA. So a pied carrier that looks pied.
The other is a dog that has two copies of pied in their DNA, but the majority of the dog is covered in color as opposed to white. This is subjective, but a minimum of 50% of the dog must be pied in order to qualify as an irish by this definition.
What is Honey Pied?
Honey pied is a cream pied (DNA would read: ee ss). Any French Bulldog that is white with patches of cream would qualify as a honey pied. However, with the intensity dilution or other recessive genes you can make this distinction undetectable and sometimes the dog can appear white.
What is a Saddle or Blanket Pied?
Under belly of the dog is white and the top of the dog has a lot of color. I see this term used interchangebly with irish pied.
What is an Extreme Pied?
This is when the head of the dog is mostly white. This is one of the few ways to make a truly white French Bulldog. There have been cases of extreme pieds that have what is called the “whitehead” gene. This gene has been associated with deaf dogs. The majority of extreme pied French Bulldogs aren’t deaf, but it can happen. Here is a little more information if you would like to dive a little deeper into extreme pieds: The White Head Gene: What You Need to Know about Pied (crowdpleazerfrenchies.com)
An Extreme Pied French Bulldog Puppy
What is an Full or Half Hood when it comes to Pied?
A full hood would be a pied with both ears and eyes are covered with color. A half hood or partial hood would be if any of their ears or eyes have white.
What special care should I give my pied french bulldog?
If your French Bulldog has a half hood of color which exposes one or both eyes, I would highly recommend doing a low grain, meat heavy diet, filtered water, vitamins such as Gladiator Gold, and clean stainless steel bowls. I recommend this for French Bulldogs anyways, but the tear stains can be especially noticeable on a white-faced French Bulldog.
Do pied French Bulldog’s shed more?
I do believe certain colors can shed more than others. Merles for example tend to be high shedders in my experience. That being said I don’t believe pieds actually shed more, but the white fur is more noticeable against a lot of different clothing and furniture.
Why do breeders avoid pied?
Pied is a breed standard color, as mentioned above, so many new color breeders will boast breeders boast “no pied” or “no brindle”, because it is not a fad pattern. It has been around a long time and therefore doesn’t come with the high price tag some of the new colors might.
Due to color breeders avoiding pied, it actually does lend for its advantages for breeders like us who do breed pieds since many families love pied French Bulldogs and are having a harder time finding this pattern.
As a breeder, we LOVE having pieds in our litters. They are more easily homed and the additional variety makes for a beautiful litter. I have also have been enjoying not needing any type of identification for each puppy since the pied patterns helps distinguish the pups from one another.
Where can I get a pied French Bulldog?
If you're interested in adding a pied French Bulldog to your family, check out our available and upcoming puppy page: French Bulldog Puppies - Pied, Blue, Grey, Lilac, and Fawn (youwinniesomefrenchies.com)
Due to our stud being a pied, about half the puppies that come from our kennel are pieds.
Where can I get a pied French Bulldog stud?
It can be a little more challenging to find a pied French Bulldog stud. Here is the link to our handsome pied stud’s page: French Bulldog Stud - Lilac Pied Fluffy (youwinniesomefrenchies.com)
Conclusion:
Overall, I would say pied is a net positive to your house or breeding program. We are all about pieds here whether they are irish or high white pieds standards or color, we can’t get enough of this color pattern.