How we write these guides
This site gives health and buying advice about a breed people love, so it is worth being explicit about where the information comes from and what we refuse to do with it.
- Every non-obvious claim carries a named source, linked, so you can check it rather than trust us.
- We prefer primary sources: breed clubs, kennel clubs, government pages and peer-reviewed papers, over blogs that rewrite them.
- Where the evidence is thin, we say so rather than padding a sentence to sound confident.
- No ads, no sponsored recommendations, no affiliate links, and no email gate on anything.
- We are not vets. This is general information written by owners, and it does not replace an examination.
Where the numbers come from
Anything that is not obvious carries a source, named and linked, at the bottom of the page it appears on. The order of preference:
- Peer-reviewed veterinary research, cited with authors, journal and year.
- Breed clubs and kennel clubs, for breed standards and recommended health testing.
- Government and official bodies, for anything legal.
- Established veterinary charities, for cost and welfare figures.
What we do not use as a source: other pet blogs, content farms, or AI summaries of any of the above. Those get things wrong, and the errors travel. A worked example: while researching UK dog law, a search summary told us the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is a banned breed. It is not. Publishing that would have frightened a lot of owners for no reason, and it was caught only by going to the government page and reading it.
Four figures that appear repeatedly across this site, so you can see the standard:
- Deafness. 10.19% of 1,060 English Bull Terrier puppies BAER tested in England were deaf in at least one ear (De Risio, Freeman and Lewis, 2016).
- Compulsive tail chasing. Median onset six months, daily episodes in 74% of affected dogs, from a study of 333 Bull Terriers at Tufts (Moon-Fanelli et al, 2011).
- Food allergens. Beef 34%, dairy 17%, chicken 15%, from a systematic review of 297 dogs with confirmed adverse food reactions (Mueller, Olivry and Prelaud, 2016).
- Breed standard wording is quoted verbatim from the Royal Kennel Club rather than paraphrased.
What we will not do
- No email gate. Every guide and every tool is free to read and use without handing over an address.
- No ads and no sponsored recommendations. Nothing on this site is here because someone paid for it to be.
- No affiliate links, and no invented "best" lists. Where we write about gear or insurance, we give criteria you can apply yourself and say plainly that we have not tested the products. A ranked list assembled from other people's reviews would not be worth your time.
- No fake freshness. The updated date on a page changes when the content changes, not when the site is rebuilt.
- No invented statistics. If we cannot find a figure, the page says so. On the cost page, for instance, we say directly that no published price figure exists for health-tested registered litters specifically, rather than making one up.
- No diagnoses, dosages or treatment protocols. We point at the vet conversation; we do not try to replace it.
Who writes it
This site is written by Bull Terrier owners, not by veterinary surgeons, and it has not been through veterinary review. We think saying that plainly is worth more than a vague "expert reviewed" badge would be.
What that means in practice: we are good on the lived detail, on which questions to ask, and on what the published evidence actually says once you read it. We are not a substitute for someone who can put their hands on your dog. Where a page touches something clinical, it says so and sends you to your vet.
The tools are built the same way. They are pattern-matching aids that show you which explanations fit what you describe, and every one of them says on the page that it cannot examine your dog and cannot rule anything out.
Tell us when we are wrong
We would rather be corrected than be quietly wrong, and this is a genuine invitation rather than a formality.
If something here is inaccurate, out of date, or contradicts another page on this site, send it to us through the contact page. Useful things to include:
- The page, and the sentence.
- What you believe is correct.
- A source, if you have one. A breed club, a vet, a paper, a government page.
Corrections to a factual claim are made quickly and the page's updated date changes. If a correction changes something substantive, we say what changed rather than editing silently.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bull Terrier Buddy written by vets?
No. It is written by Bull Terrier owners and it has not been through veterinary review. Every non-obvious claim is sourced and linked so you can check it, and anything clinical says plainly that it is general information rather than a substitute for an examination.
Do you take money from brands or use affiliate links?
No. There are no ads, no sponsored recommendations and no affiliate links anywhere on the site. Where we write about gear or insurance we give criteria you can apply yourself and state that we have not tested the products, because a ranked list built from other people's reviews would not be worth your time.
How do I report a mistake on the site?
Through the contact page. Include the page, the sentence, what you believe is correct and a source if you have one. Factual corrections are made quickly and the page's updated date changes; if a correction is substantive we say what changed rather than editing silently.
Why do some pages say the evidence is unclear?
Because sometimes it is. Where research is thin, contested or simply absent, saying so is more useful than writing a confident sentence that is not supported. The cost page, for example, states directly that no published price figure exists for health-tested registered litters rather than inventing one.
Sources
- De Risio L, Freeman J, Lewis T. "Prevalence, heritability and genetic correlations of congenital sensorineural deafness and coat pigmentation phenotype in the English bull terrier." BMC Veterinary Research. 2016;12:146. bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com
- Moon-Fanelli AA, Dodman NH, Famula TR, Cottam N. "Characteristics of compulsive tail chasing and associated risk factors in Bull Terriers." J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2011;238(7):883-889. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- The Royal Kennel Club. Bull Terrier breed standard. www.royalkennelclub.com
- American Kennel Club. Terrier group health testing requirements (the tests each parent club recommends). www.akc.org
- PDSA. The cost of owning a dog. Figures last calculated by PDSA in 2024. www.pdsa.org.uk
This is general information, not veterinary advice. It cannot account for your individual dog, and nothing here replaces an examination by a vet who can see him. Anything that looks urgent needs a vet now rather than a web page.
Related guides
Keep a record worth having
Most Bull Terrier problems are pattern problems, and patterns only appear if something is written down. Log it as it happens and take real data to your vet rather than a recollection.
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