10/09/2026
**Bull breeds rarely need help finding the accelerator.**
They need us to help them discover the brakes. 💛
I’ve shared my life with Bull breeds - primarily Boxers - for more than 25 years.
So, when somebody tells me their dog:
🐾 Jumps up at visitors
🐾 Grabs sleeves or mouths arms
🐾 Launches their entire body at people
🐾 Becomes more frantic every time somebody says “No!”
🐾 Travels from apparently calm to completely bananas in seconds
Believe me…I feel their pain. 😂
Bull breeds often live life with their whole bodies.
They don’t just greet you - they attempt to climb inside your skin.
They don’t merely become excited - they explode.
And when all that enthusiasm is wrapped in muscle, jumping and mouthing can quickly become painful, frightening and impossible to ignore.
But these dogs usually don’t need our help going **up**.
Fast movements, raised voices, pushing them away, grabbing collars and repeatedly telling them to get down can all add more movement, attention and energy to an already overflowing situation.
Even negative attention is still attention - and to a highly social dog, that can keep the party going.
What they need is help coming **down**.
That might mean:
🐾 Preparing before visitors enter, rather than reacting after the explosion
🐾 Offering an appropriate toy before their mouth finds a human
🐾 Using gates or barriers to create breathing space
🐾 Keeping voices, hands and bodies calm
🐾 Reinforcing four paws on the floor
🐾 Using sniffing, scattering and searching to bring arousal down
🐾 Building in pauses before they reach 100
🐾 Making sure an overtired dog gets enough rest
Most importantly, we need to practise calmness while the dog is still capable of being calm.
We cannot wait until they are ricocheting around the room, grabbing clothing and unable to think - and then expect a beautifully composed response to “sit”.
At 100, the thinking brain has left the building.
Our job is to notice 20…40…60…and help them change direction before they reach the top.
That doesn’t mean suppressing their fabulous personalities. I would never want to remove the joy, humour, enthusiasm or glorious ridiculousness that makes a Bull breed who they are.
We’re not trying to extinguish the fire.
We’re teaching them how to warm the room without burning the house down. 🔥😂
And no, they don’t need a firmer hand simply because they are powerful.
They need thoughtful management, appropriate outlets, well-timed reinforcement and humans who understand that underneath the muscles is often an incredibly sensitive dog with very big feelings.
I know living with these dogs can be exhausting.
I know what it’s like to love them fiercely while wondering why every greeting has to resemble a minor traffic accident.
And I know that change is possible.
We don’t need to battle their strength.
We need to help them learn something far more valuable:
**How to come back down.** 💛
