No. The problem isn't that I don't have a clue. The problem is I do. But I knew that was coming. I even predicted it.
Let's deal with this one right off the bat shall we?
Weeeee want to breed heritage working traits into the dog.....Whyyyyyy can't you ignorant people without a clue seeeeee this??.....
Let's look at the "working traits" of a modern Bulldog. How is having a cuter, more childlike face a working trait? How is difficulty breathing a working trait? How is being unable to reproduce without artificial insemination to get the female pregnant and surgery to remove the offspring a working trait? How is an underbite bred to the extreme a working trait? How is a greatly reduced ability to cool itself a working trait? How is having so many wrinkles it can barely even see a working trait? It is a trivial matter to prove that these so called working traits they want to breed into the dog aren't working traits at all and that the modern bulldog can't do the job it was once meant to do anymore because of it and because of what unwittingly came with it. . But you're not allowed to even ask those questions because you aren't one of the cool kids that has a clue. Or maybe they just say that because they flat out don't have an acceptable answer when the truth is presented. Moreover, for most breeds, the jobs that they were bred for are no longer relevant so there is no need other than dog shows to breed these so-called working traits into them in the first place. The result What was 100 years ago a healthy and athletic breed of dog is now a dog with myriad health issues that would be useless for the job it was originally supposed to do. They weren't breeding genuine work traits. They were breeding cartoonish exaggerated versions of them. Just look below. Way to breed those "legacy working traits" into a dog. Such a claim would be hilariously laughable if the result wasn't such a disaster.
And even if they were breeding for genuinely legacy work traits, rather than exaggerated cartoonish versions of such for breed standards, it was doomed to be a disaster anyway.
Any time one artificially selects for a visible trait, one also unwittingly artificially selects for invisible traits that happen to be there too, many of which are bad and some of which are lethal.
Anyone that has even had biology at the most basic of levels understands this.
So the kennel club along with breeders either
A) do not understand even the material taught in the most basic of biology classes.
Or
B) do not care.
And anyone that even questions their methods according to them, "is ignorant" And if that doesn't work they deflect and blame it on a few bad actors. They thumb their arrogant noses up with righteous indignation and sanctimony at mixed breed breeders such as goldendoodles for putting a new twist on their already ill advised eugenics to a level slightly beyond theirs or claim it's a problem with unscrupulous inbreeders who take their ill advised eugenics to a level well beyond. Never mind that several show breeds are themselves crossbreeds and never mind that inbreeding show dogs is a problem. And never mind entire breeds of dogs weren't completely wrecked to the level they are indeed wrecked by just a few unscrupulous breeders. That the breed is in such bad shape tells you it's not just a few bad apples. The only differences between what these legacy working trait breeders along with the kennel club encourage, and what they condemn are not of kind, but are either of slight degree, or are of no degree at all.
Now lets deal with retrievers. Yes I am aware that retrievers, like every breed have problems. But again to claim "kennel club standards" and "pedigree breeding" aren't a big reason for the problems is an exercise in self delusion. And I am also aware that there is still hope for the retriever. It isn't past the point of no return. Sadly, the Bulldog appears to be past that point. It has fallen victim to the other problem of selective breeding, lack of variability in its gene pool. And to attempt to breed some of the problems out would further reduce it and would be incredibly risky. It is an irony that the one thing the pedigree breeders hate most may be the bulldog's only way out.