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The Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog

A Breed in Peril

By koral hamiltonPublished 5 years ago 4 min read
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Merle Alapaha Puppies

The Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog is a sub-type of American bulldog created in the 1980s by a woman from Rebecca Georgia named Lana Lou Lane. There are many different stories of the breed's origin that range from a lost breed in the isolated mountains of Georgia to a pitbull mix running down the road and being bred by a Catahoula cur. From the DNA testing that has recently begun and the pedigrees in existence, we can safely surmise that the Alapaha is founded from various lines of American Bulldog, Colby lined Pitbull Terriers and a dog carrying the merle gene, most likely a Catahoula or a Dane.

Lana worked with several noted bulldog breeders such as John Conner, Mike Connors, Joe Shay, and John D. Johnson to name a few. Her dogs were very popular as they were beautifully coloured, functional working bulldogs. Lana registered her breed with the ARF (Animal Research Foundation) and they were fetching upwards of $2000. This caught the attention of breeders wishing to have dogs that fetched such high prices. These breeders took dogs from Lana but then added in other breeds to create the legendary rare breed plantation bulldog in their own image for their own personal gain. Lana Lou Lane passed away in 2001 leaving her breed unfinished and unsupervised. The two men that have had the most notable imprint on the destruction of Lana Lou Lane's creation were Marker Ray Nicholas and Raoul T. Coleman.

Marker Ray Nicholas was a kennel attendant for Ms. Lane at her kennel Circle L. Kennels. Allegedly, Marker was to deliver over a dozen puppies to buyers across the country but instead kept the pups for himself. He used these as his foundation for his own breed he created and registered with the ARF in 1996/97 as the Old Southern Bulldog. Marker added in his own lines of pitbull along with various other dogs to create this breed. He did one thing proper, though. He changed the name of the breed. Some Alapaha breeders today will crossbreed with the Old Southern Bulldog and say that they are one in the same. They are not.

The second man that influenced the path of this breed, Raoul Coleman, chose to steal the Alapaha name and re-write its history to suit the breed that he was creating. The Lana Lou Lane Alapaha was less bully and typically larger than the breed Raoul had created. Her dogs had higher prey drive with lower man aggression as they were used frequently as farm utility and catch dogs. Raoul wanted to mass market these dogs and make them easier to sell and more man aggressive. So he added in his mix of breeds to reshape the breed into his image. Some of these breeds confirmed by DNA and pedigree were English Bulldog, Olde English Bulldog, Bandog, Mastiff, and the modern Johnson American Bulldog. His kennel Cattle Rustler Kennels (CRK) exploded in popularity and thousands of the more English bulldog type of Alapaha spread across the United States and even across the Pond to the United Kingdom. To this day there is no more widely used kennel than CRK.

So what does this mean for Lana's dogs? Well her breed had fewer breeders producing them. Her lines are slowly dying out as most of the original breeders quit because the CRK alapaha simply steamrolled over the taller, less marketable farm dog. To this day, there is a very small handful of breeders left fighting to preserve the breed as it was originally intended by its founder. There are less than 200 breedable dogs that carry lineage back from Circle L. Kennels or any of the breeder's lines that Lana worked with. It is a breed that is truly facing extinction due to the the influx of the bullier type. There is now a registry (illegitimate) called the ABR (the Alapaha Bulldog Registry) that is saying there is only one breed and one standard for the dogs. This organization encourages its members to blend together the original lines, the OSB and the bully lines, to eradicate the original dogs and blend everything into one. Now I would like to make this very clear. These dogs have two completely different phenotypes and completely different temperaments. They look nothing alike. Neither is superior to the other and unfortunately due to the choice of CRK, they both share the name. I wanted to write this article because a lot of people don't know how great the original dogs are. A lot of people are unaware of the breed's sorted past. I am one of the few breeders left fighting to save this breed from extinction. We just want the right to exist as our own individual breed. We will share the name but please support two breeds, two standards, and do not allow these amazing dogs to disappear.

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  • koral hamilton (Author)6 months ago

    That is interesting theory Mr. Kelly however the ABBA was founded by Mr. Ray Coleman. Lana actually began documenting the breed creation on paper with the ARF in 1981 and officially conpleted her creation in 1986. That wouls make Mr. Coleman a minor. This history is true and can be verified via achived records and the ABBA Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog is an Olde English Mix that looks nothing like Lana's dogs. Additionally Mr. Kelly Lana lived on the Alapaha River in Georgia and the ABBA was founded in California. Also Papa Buck had a dog that she modeled her breed after and it was a white english curr dog. So i think you must belong to the ABBA or have a smashed faced Bulldog and you are drinking the kool-aid. The breeds are different sir despite having the same name which is reflected in legal journals when the ABBA and Mr. Coleman was sued for stealing the name unsuccessfully because Lana did not think to trademark it. But thank you for coming out jr

  • Ray Kelley6 months ago

    Lana Lou Lane is actually the lady that stole the credit for the Alapaha blue blood bulldog.They original creators of the breed is Papa Buck Lane(Her father) and William Chester of Georgia and Cecil Evans and Kenny Houston of Florida. She was the first Secretary of the Alapaha Blue-Blood Bulldog Association (ABBA) the founding organization which duly named the breed in 1979. Many years prior to the false start date Lana Lou Lane says she created the registry in the 1990s.

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