In the early years of development, Ironside teamed up with Grimm's American Bulldog's in New Jersey. For several years we studied the Johnson American Bulldog and produced several litters in conjunction with Peter Grimm. Over time we found genetic problems in several of the Johnson lines, such as the Sugar Doll and Mean Machine lines. These genetic issues repeated themselves from generation to generation. This is well known in the American Bulldog community whether people want to discuss the issues or not. There is a strong effort among several Johnson breeders to correct these genetic issues but it is the opinion of Ironside that the only true attempt lies in the hybrid.
Over the next few years, Ironside began to put together its own philosophy on what makes a good Bulldog. If you speak to 5 different breeders or Bulldog enthusiasts, you will find most of the material to be the same but when it comes to the opinions of what makes a good bulldog, you find personal preference, opinion and speculation. This isn't a bad thing, it's actually good. If you read the ABA or ABNA breed standard, you will find similarities with some differences. If you read the UKC or NKC breed standard for American Bulldogs, you will find the same. So basically, the bulldog community as a whole isn't so much different when it comes to breed standards, the only difference really is the difference of opinion on what makes a good bulldog.
Hybrids are the combination of both the Performance type American Bulldog and the Johnson type American Bulldog. You take the qualities from both types and try breed in the good and breed out the bad. The Johnson type, in our opinion, brings in thick, strong bone along with the shorter muzzle which gives the Bulldog the sour mug. We don't want to exploit this to its extreme but we want to see a bulldog look like a bulldog. If the muzzle is too short, you have problems with the breathing and heat. This limits the bulldog within the working arena. With the strong durable bone, comes size. A bulldog needs the size to compete on the fields of Hog work or weight pull, once again that's where the Johnson fits in. The Performance type brings a wide array of pro's to the table. The Performance American Bulldog is agile, quick and enduring. These dogs bring in a good solid balance of drives both prey and defense. Genetically they have less problems than their brother Johnson dogs and the maintain solid healthy structure. Performance dogs if bred to other performance dogs tend to shrink in size and the muzzles tend to lengthen. This occurs over time naturally but it seems to happen none the less.
So it is what it is. Ironside believes that both types bring something to the table to stabilize a solid dog. We don't claim to be the best nor do we believe we are. We just try to do what we think is right.
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