A rare coat colour is a surprising but crucial influence on the amount of money someone will pay for a French Bulldog. Rare colours can lift the price dramatically; the same is true if they have light-coloured eyes instead of more common dark eyes.
Today we’ll look at the different colours French Bulldogs can come in and which rare coat colours are the most desirable.
The most common coat colours include brindle, fawn, and white, with brindle being particularly popular. French Bulldogs can also come in various patterns, including pied (white with coloured patches) and solid colours.
While brindle and fawn are widely sought after, other shades like cream and blue can also be found.
Frenchies show a huge variation in colours ranging from light to dark and everything in between. The American Kennel Club currently recognises 11 colours in the breed.
A fawn French Bulldog is very common to see. Fawn can also be described as a straw-like colour that varies from light to dark, with the darker shade having a tint of red.
Fawn Frenchies often have a white chest with patches of white on their coat and a black mask. Some combinations of fawn include –
Frenchies will often have cream or white markings over a main coat colour, though, in some cases, you can find entirely cream or white French Bulldogs. A cream or white French bulldog is essentially a pied Bulldog without the characteristic patches.
White Frenchies will have a dark mask that pops beautifully against their light coat and puts a striking finish on their coat.
Cream or white are very popular colours and are particularly difficult to breed for, so you can expect to pay a premium to get your hands on a white or cream French bulldog puppy.
Brindle is one of the most popular and common coat appearances in Frenchies, but we should acknowledge that it’s more of a pattern than a colour.
A brindle French Bulldog will have a combination of dark and light shades of brown meshed with thin black stripes. This gives a brindle coat a unique, textural appearance that is similar to a tiger’s coat, which is why this pattern is sometimes referred to as ‘tiger stripe.’
Blue French Bulldogs tend to have a dark fawn or grey colour base with a striking light blue tint and they develop this unique shade – though only if they’re born with a double recessive black dilution gene, making it hard to predict.
A blue French Bulldog with a fawn pattern will be rarer than one with blue brindle. Their blue colouration will appear over their fawn hairs on either the ears and back, their face or in all three spots.
Brindle blue Frenchies tend to have a stronger colouring with a blue tint, as well as often developing striking light eyes that offset their coat beautifully.
Blue merle French Bulldogs have gained a lot of popularity recently and are the result of French Bulldog breeders breeding dogs with pigment removed, creating random patches of dark blue colouring on light grey skin, not dissimilar to a Dalmatian’s patterning.
The ANKC has strict rules on what they deem acceptable colours for a French bulldog, allowing only brindle, fawn and pied.
The highly undesirable colours as per the ANKC are
This entirely depends on you and what you’ve got in mind. You may find if you go looking for a French Bulldog with no ideas in mind, you may find yourself going for a colour that surprises you.
If you’re drawn to exotic Frenchie colours, you can’t want more than a blue merle French Bulldog. Their beautiful colouring and icy blue eyes make them stand out in a market of family dogs that’s saturated by Frenchies.
A Blue Merle Frenchie, or any sort of blue Frenchie, can be expensive, so if you don’t mind about having a rare colour, then any Frenchie – whether black and tan or chocolate – will win you over with their loveable energy.
French Bulldog puppies have more delicate hair than adults, giving them that beautiful soft coat. They’ll shed these around six months of age and grow an adult coat, but don’t panic; their new coat is only slightly less soft.
Frenchies come in an extensive range of colours and patterns, each lending them their own unique personality and individuality that might be one of the reasons behind the popularity of the French Bulldog breed.
These loveable little balls of hyperactive energy or lazy sleepiness make fantastic companions, whatever their colour.
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