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About this site
Almost everything written about French Bulldogs online is produced by someone who wants to sell you one. This site exists to publish the numbers and the risks plainly, including the ones that make the breed a harder sell.
Who writes this
Shelly Wright — 18 years with French Bulldogs, based in Brighton.
Eighteen years means having been through most of it: the vet visits that turned out to be nothing, the ones that did not, the surgery decisions taken with incomplete information, and the slow realisation of how much of what circulates about this breed is repeated rather than checked.
I am not a vet, and this site does not pretend otherwise. What I have is long, close experience of living with the breed and a habit of reading the actual research rather than the summaries of it. Where a page describes a clinical matter, it says what the current veterinary consensus is and points you at your own vet for the decision. Where the research is contested — and on lifespan in this breed it genuinely is — the page says so and shows both figures.
If you have knowledge that improves something here, particularly if you work in practice, I would rather hear it than not.
Why the tone is what it is
This breed is wonderful company. It is also, on the current evidence, one of the least healthy dogs you can choose, and the market around it is full of people who profit from you not knowing that until after the money has changed hands.
So the writing here is plain about cost and risk before purchase rather than after. That occasionally means arguing against a sale — the pages on rare colours and on "teacup" dogs both actively tell people not to spend money. That is deliberate.
How the cost figures are produced
Every monetary figure comes from one shared model rather than being typed into individual pages, so the calculator, the cost pages and the health pages cannot quietly disagree with one another. Change a number once and the whole site updates.
Each figure carries a source and a verification date, published in full on where our figures come from. That page also explains a distinction most sources blur: the proportion of French Bulldogs affected by a condition is not the proportion treated for it, and only the second one generates a bill.
Current data status: 13 figures in the cost model remain modelled estimates rather than sourced values. The count is generated from the model itself, so it cannot go out of date, and the sources page explains specifically why each one is still an estimate.
Veterinary accuracy
Health pages describe signs, causes, diagnostic routes and treatment options as they are currently understood. They are not diagnostic tools and they do not replace a consultation. Where guidance has genuinely changed — the shift towards rapid aggressive cooling in heat stroke, or away from removing the third eyelid gland in cherry eye — we say so, because outdated advice circulates widely in this breed and causes real harm.
Every page carries a review date. Anything older than twelve months should be treated with more caution than something reviewed recently.
What we will not do
- Take commission from breeders or puppy sellers — not now, not ever
- Accept payment for coverage, placement or a favourable review
- Recommend something because it pays better
- Publish about a condition purely because it has products attached
- Use photographs of dogs in distress to drive clicks
- Present the site as veterinary advice
Corrections and contact
If something here is wrong, I want to know — particularly on the health pages. Corrections are made promptly and the review date updated.
See also our affiliate disclosure and sources.