By Kinga Janik

The bulldog attack—of sorts—happened one Friday night two years ago when Georgetown University senior Sita Palepu made the mistake of leaving the door to her dorm slightly ajar as she and friends enjoyed a pizza. She laughs recalling, “A lightening fast bulldog runs through the door and attacks the pizza slice I was reaching for. His dexterity was impressive. It wasn’t a sloppy job.” The guilty canine was Jack, the then two-year-old pup who is mascot of the university. The man scolding him profusely was Father Christopher Steck, Jack’s Jesuit caretaker. The pizza slice in question was pepperoni, long since swallowed by a content-looking bulldog.

Universities around the country elect to have a dog, like Jack, serve as the school’s mascot. Some of the breeds chosen for the job include the husky, the Boston terrier, the collie, and of course, the bulldog. There is something special, however, about the spiked collars and bristling fur of the bulldog that most aptly captures the fighting collegiate spirit.

Statistics show that the bulldog is the dog breed most favored to represent American universities. According to USA Today, it is the third most prevalent mascot amongst four-year universities in the United States, chosen by over thirty-nine universities. The most prominent include Georgetown University’s Jack the Bulldog, Yale University’s Handsome Dan and the University of Georgia’s Uga the Bulldog.

Why is this particular breed of dog chosen to focus the student body’s energy at Georgetown and other American universities? With is big-boned, wrinkly-skinned appearance and loose jowls, the bulldog does not look like much. Claudia Brown, the President of the Bulldog Club of America, accounts for their popularity as a university mascot by explaining, “The bulldog is portrayed as ferocious. He’s a go-getter. As they say, ‘a bulldog with a bone isn’t going to let go.’ It gives the school that’s using it [as a mascot] the image that it is solid.”

But the prevalence of the bulldog breed as a university mascot doesn’t stack up with its overall popularity as a pet in the United States. According to the American Kennel Club’s 2007 census of American dog owners, the bulldog is not ranked in the top ten most popular breeds, in neither its French nor English variants.

At the universities that adopt the bulldog as their mascot, however, the dogs achieve celebrity status. They have pressing schedules of official engagements and appearances on and off-campus. The aura that builds around the bulldogs is most evident when a student volunteer takes them for a simple walk around campus. “I am infinitely more popular when I walk Jack,” explains Kristin Sheldon, a Georgetown senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Everyone stops to talk to me [asking] ‘is this the real Jack?’ Everyone wants to pet him.”

The University of Georgia treats its bulldog Uga, named for the acronym of the university, like a monarch. Thousands of spectators part the way as trumpeters and members of the Redcoat Marching Band announce his presence at football games. The traditionally all-white Uga the Bulldog is bred from the same line of descent, with the title passed on diligently when the elder Uga retires or passes away. When they die, every Uga’s body is ceremoniously interred in the UGA stadium. Owner Frank W. “Sonny” Seiler describes during an interview on College Sports Television how inseparable the dogs and the school are for him, “I don’t know what it would feel like to go to a game without an Uga. I would feel like I didn’t have my pants on or something.”

At Yale University, Handsome Dan has been part of the campus for over a hundred years. He is now in his sixteenth incarnation. Each Handsome Dan is picked by students during a rigorous competition amongst entrees vying for the position of mascot. The winning dog continues to go by its own name but takes on Handsome Dan as their official title. On the origin of the seemingly oxymoronic name, the local paper the Hartford Courant writes, “In personal appearance, he seemed like a cross between an alligator and a horned frog, and he was called handsome by the metaphysicians under the law of compensation.”

Georgetown University only introduced the bulldog breed to its campus in 1962, and it has not continuously had a mascot on campus during those 45 years. The current Jack only joined the campus in 2003 as a puppy.

While Jack the Bulldog may be a relatively new addition to Georgetown’s campus, he has already accumulated an elite squadron of keepers called the ‘Jack Crew.’ Admission to this group of roughly twenty devoted Hoyas is limited to those that not only exhibit exemplary school pride, but to those that are willing to get their hands dirty. ‘Crew’ members must be fearless enough to put their hand down Jack’s throat—should it become necessary—in what is a canine version of CPR. This is a precaution taken in case Jack has a life-threatening episode common to bulldogs: phlegm dries up and blocks the dog’s throat.

Father Steck, Jack’s official caretaker, introduces the walkers to the dog by providing them with a crib sheet of his likes and dislikes. Some of these are fairly simple. “The list of things that get his attention,” reveals veteran Jack walker Nick Sementelli, a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service, “includes people carrying things and people wearing hats.” The dog also has a fondness for ripping apart cardboard boxes.

The long-standing tradition of bulldog mascots will continue at the University of Georgia and Yale University, and it will continue to grow at Georgetown University. Claudia Brown—who, in addition to serving as the President of the Bulldog Club of America, shares her home with eight pet bulldogs of her own—testifies that the staying power of the breed as a mascot is due to the fact that they are “loving, stubborn, and definitely smart” dogs. These three characteristics, plus a shared fondness for pizza, show that the bulldog mascots are, in fact, a lot like the college students they represent.