Do French bulldogs make a good family dog?

French Bulldogs are one of the most gentle and loving dogs of all breeds. They are perfectly fitted into small spaces, so they fit well with apartment living. They do not require a lot of exercise, so even children can take turns taking their Frenchie for a short walk. Small children can be rough on puppies, but the Frenchie's ever so gentle personality will always tolerate all kinds of rough play. 

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What are the best toys and harnesses for Frenchies?

From our 18 years of experience with the French bulldog breed, we have made an extensive list of all the best toys, crates, food and cleaning products. Saving you hours of research, you can find the comprehensive list right here: 

Best Frenchie Products

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What will my puppy come with?

All Royal Frenchies puppies come:

~CKC Registration

~Microchipped

~ Up to date Vaccinations and medical records

~ 4x dewormed

~ One year congenital health guarantee

~Non-breeding contract

~ Temperament tested with The Volhard Aptitude Test 

~Potty trained/outside trained (weather dependent)

~daily photo and video updates of your puppy growing posted on our IG

~Full Veterinary exam by a Board Certified Veterinarian with written proof of such

~Positive introduction of puppies to grooming including nail trims, ear cleaning and bathing

~Early puppy socialization activities (including car rides, exposure to children, meeting other dogs, and outdoor activities)

~One Month Free Trupanion Pet Insurance

~Lifetime of Breeder support

 

 

Do you ship?

As of November 2020 we no longer offer shipping within Canada due to the new restrictions imposed on snubnosed/brachycephalic breeds by Canadian Airlines. 

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What type of payments do you accept and how does the deposit work? 

For payment we accept E-transfers, Cash and all major Credit Cards*.

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Deposit for our waitlist is $500 and is fully refundable ONLY if we don't produce and offer you a puppy of your chosen gender/color within 18 months of joining our Waitlist. When you pick a specific puppy at around 3 weeks of age, your deposit is directly applied to them and your deposit becomes non-refundable and non-transferable to other litters (only within the same litter if another puppy is still available). That means that if you officially reserved a puppy  and then later on decide you won't be able to adopt them your deposit is non refundable and you will have to re-join our Waitlist again if you wish to continue to be on it.

Please note that if you are on our Waitlist, once a puppy of your choice of gender and color was offered to you and you choose for whatever reason to pass on that puppy, your deposit has officially become

non-refundable. That doesn't mean a puppy of your choice won't ever be offered to you again, but there are no guarantees in breeding that your preferred gender/color will be offered to you within 18 months of joining our Waitlist. 

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*Please note that if paying by credit card there will be a 3.5% fee surcharge.

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Do I need a big house and fenced-in backyard to properly care for a Frenchie?

 

Fortunately, Frenchies adapt very well to apartment living.  They do not need big spaces to roam in order to be happy. Frenchies only need a moderate amount of exercise, which can be accomplished by a walk around the neighborhood sometime during the day, a short play time in the back yard, etc.

One caution is that Frenchie puppies should be kept away from dog parks and other areas where sick dogs may have been.  Young puppies (less than 12 weeks old) do not have all of their immunities built up yet and could possibly pick up parvo or distemper in grass or other areas where sick animals have been.

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Your French Bulldog puppy can also be taught to go potty on an artificial potty grass mat which can be placed in a strategic location in the house.   This makes it possible for you to periodically leave your Frenchie in the house without supervision for an extended period of time while you are away running errands,or at work. 

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What is your return policy?

If you have adopted a puppy from us and decide to return them for any reason other than a life threatening congenital health defects that are covered by our health guarantee, our policy is as follows:

Royal Frenchies keeps $500 (this is the non-refundable deposit) and 20% of the new selling price. Buyer will only receive a refund once the puppy has been resold. The refund comes from the new re-selling price, no refunds from the original price. (Reselling price might be lower than the original purchase price due to puppy's age.)

It is the buyer's responsibility to return the puppy to the breeder.

Royal Frenchies won't be responsible for shipping/travel expenses.

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When do I have to pick my puppy up?

We always inform our adoptive families when their puppy will be ready to go to their new home ahead of time. The dates are either posted directly on our website or we let you know the exact date through email.

We give our adoptive parents an 7 day window in which they can pick their puppy up, and after that we do charge $30/day puppy sitting fee. This window is 3 days before and 3 days after your puppy turns 9 weeks old. This is to discourage situations where people have informed us, after they already reserved a puppy, that they wouldn't be able to pick their puppy up for weeks or months on end.

So for example, if your puppy is 9 weeks old/ready to go home on June 1st and you wouldn't be able to pick him/her up until June 9th then it'd be $150 for puppy sitting for the extra 5 days.

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Can we visit?
Please visit our visit policy page here: https://www.royalfrenchies.ca/visiting

We do not welcome interested families to our home, mostly because of bio-security concerns. We do our best to set up an open house for reservation families to visit with the litter. And we post lots of pictures and videos on our Instagram so that you can see what our home environment looks like and how we raise our puppies.We are always available for a video chat as well. 

 

Our Waitlists:

 Dog breeding does not come with any guarantees. Families usually wait for over a year between initially emailing us and receiving a reservation for a puppy. The wait could be longer or shorter for individual families mostly depending on how nature's realities line up with our plans. For example, the wait time could be longer if all of our girls delay coming into heat, if the girls all come into heat at once (we prefer to only have one or two litters at a time), a female doesn't get pregnant, or we have a small litter of puppies. If we have a litter with a large number of puppies, the wait could be shorter. We only have 1 or 2 opportunities to breed a female dog each year. It is also important to remember that puppies are raised in our home as part of our family, so changes or plans in our personal life will affect our ability to raise litters. Warm weather litters always have more interested families. We always try to inform families on our waitlist about which of our females is going into heat or if their pregnancy has been confirmed, so they can prepare accordingly.

 

Do Frenchies shed?

Frenchies are short haired and single coated (one reason they can’t tolerate extremely cold temperatures for extended periods of time), so they do not shed as much as other dogs with fur. Frenchies are about as good as it gets for minimal shedding.

 

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​What is the Cost of Breeding and Raising French Bulldog Puppies?

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• Health testing costs for parents; ie. DNA screening ($300)

• Progesterone testing ($300-600/breeding).

• Ultrasound and/or X-rays to confirm pregnancy ($500)

• Grooming, feeding, training, and veterinary costs for each parent dog per year, this can be thousands per year in premium food costs alone 

• Stud Fee:  >$3500 if using Stud owned by another breeder

• Cost of purchasing breeding dog:   >$15 000 CAN + shipping and duty (unfortunately prices for stud services and importing breeding dogs has gone up significantly in the past year so our puppy purchase prices have to reflect this). 

• Whelping materials

• Puppy supplies ($1000+ per litter: puppy pee-pads, toys, treats, chews, puppy pens, flooring, crates, bedding)

• Puppy health: milk replacer and bottles, de-wormer, probiotics, puppy food for mom and puppies 

• Puppy Vaccination and Wellness Exam ($120 per puppy)

• Spay/neuter of retired breeding dogs ($700)

• Microchip ($75 per puppy)

• Registration fees to register litter ($300 average per litter)

• Annual membership fees for CKC

• Cost of electricity to keep puppies warm or cool 

• House upkeep (the amount of maintenance needed when sharing our home with our canine crew is considerable)

• Mileage: traveling to pick up our dogs from foster homes, vet visits etc.

• Cleaning supplies 

• Accountant and book-keeping fees

• Continuing education (books, courses, workshops)

• Administration fees (website fees, office supplies, printer supplies, Quickbooks subscription, Microsoft subscription, Lightroom subscription, etc.)

• Potential emergency/unexpected costs:  female dog could require c-section or develop conditions such as mastitis, eclampsia, or pyometra; potential for vet visits for sick or injured puppies or dogs. An emergency C-section cost was $6,000 in 2020.

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**Please note that the estimated costs do not include our time. When we have puppies there is someone home 7 days a week, 24 hours a day to watch the puppies and the dogs which often means we miss out on special times with family & friends (including holidays). We also spend a considerable amount of time in year-round administration, education, and correspondence with families which averages to several hours every day.**

 

 

 

Is there a notable difference between a male and a female Frenchies?

We honestly feel that male and females are equals in most aspects, as long as you neuter or spay them at the appropriate age of about 6 months. 

All Frenchies are very friendly – they LOVE people and are extremely affectionate and good with kids. Both males and females are very smart and easy to train, including kennel training and house breaking. 

Physically, males generally have larger heads and are bigger and bullier looking. 

It is a matter of individual preference – while some like big and bully, others like small and petite.

 

While there are modest physical differences on average between males and females, there are no such apparent personality differences between males and females (assuming they are both fixed).

 

Every French Bulldog male or female, like every human being, is blessed with an individual personality that makes him/her unique and special, and gender does not seem to be a significant determining factor.

While all of our Frenchies LOVE people and get along very well with each other there are some very interesting differences among them personality wise.

 

Your Frenchie can be outgoing or shy, very active or very laid back, bold or cautious, and dominant or submissive.

 

A good part of a Frenchie’s personality is determined by his/her environment, but some of it is present at birth and starts coming out at only a few weeks of age. But, every Frenchie is so unique and special – we love them all.

 

 

 

 

What are the life stages of a Frenchie? 

Birth to 7wks: This is the critical period, where puppies are learning to accept discipline from their dam and to interact with their litter mates.

 

7-12wks: the socialisation period.  At this age the puppy is capable of learning anything, and its brain has the capacity of an adult dog.  This is a valuable period and should not be wasted.

 

8-16wks:the fear period.  Things that a pup happily accepted before, may for a short time appear threatening and produce fear in the puppy.  Recognise that this is just a stage and will pass.  Do not force your puppy to confront the things he fears.  Just be calm and non fearful yourself; treat the thing your puppy fears with distain and he will take his cue from you.  DO NOT OVER PROTECT OR DISPLAY TOO MUCH CONCERN

 

12-16wks:  This will be the testing period when your puppy decides whether he is No. 2 in your family, or comes after all the other family members as he should.Also called the age of cutting ...cutting teeth and cutting the apron strings. Puppies test pack leadership. Any biting should be discouraged even the leash. This is a good time to start training

 

4mths-8mths: the flight instinct period.  This is the testing time when your puppy becomes deaf at convenient times when a puppy that previously would come will suddenly takes off in the opposite direction and refuse to obey. Your puppy is trying to explore the world and "try its wings."

 

6mths-14mths the second fear period.  Your puppy may suddenly become terror stricken about something he has seen many times before.  This is illogical behaviour and like a child having a nightmare.  Just be calm and reassuring and avoid confrontation while your puppy is unable to cope.

 

Sometime between 12-24mths your Frenchie will go through adolescence.

 

One to four years - Maturity this is when sexual maturity begins during this period there may be more dominant behaviour at this point 2 dogs that have grown up together may try to declare dominance over one another

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Can we set up a phone call to talk about your puppies? 
We certainly can, however we really prefer email. And we will email you back (be sure to check your email privacy setting and junk mail if you have not received a response)! We like having the time to think through responses, and flexibility in drafting emails is important when we are caring for puppies. It is also important to us that families have a written record our responses to questions to look back upon.