Every morning we take Claude for a walk in a field near our house. We spend a little bit of time playing with a stick. As soon as the stick is in my hand, he will try to grab it from me, and what always amazed me is how high he can jump up. So much so, that we decided to measure the height he can jump at. I hope you enjoy our little study and video!
How high can a French Bulldog jump? A French Bulldog can jump as high as 110 cm (43.3 inches) from a standing position, with that height being where their mouth can reach. This means his back legs can get between 40 and 50 cm off the ground from a standing start. Our Frenchie can also jump up onto a bed of 60 cm high (23.6 inches) quite easily with a short run-up.
It’s worth mentioning at this point that Claude seems to be taller than the average French Bulldog at 14 inches high (most are between 11 and 12 inches high). Based on that, you can probably assume that your Frenchie won’t be able to jump as high as Claude can.
So, are French Bulldogs good jumpers overall? Frenchies aren’t the best of jumpers. However, once fully grown they will have no problems jumping up onto a couch or bed. But you will need to exercise caution as they can harm their back and spine when jumping too high up or down from a height.
In fact, a few months ago I actually measured how tall he was, and you can see the findings and a video in my how tall is a Frenchie blog post.
But, if you simply want to see how I measured how high a Frenchie can jump, watch the video below which includes Claude jumping from a standing start, jumping on a couch, bed, and over some other obstacles with a little run up.
Watch our Frenchie jumping experiment
Conclusions on our high jump experiments
To conclude, from a standing start, our Frenchie can leap his mouth to reach as high as 110 cm (43.3 inches from the ground). When doing this, his feet will be between 40 and 50 cm off the ground. You can see an example of that in the photo below.
However, that isn’t the full story.
In our video we also recorded Claude jumping up onto a couch and bed. Our bed was the highest thing he could jump up onto, being 60 cm (23.6 inches) high. He would struggle to jump up any higher than that, so fences would almost certainly be impossible for him.
- Standing start: 45 to 50 cm high
- With a run up: 60 cm high
What other high things can Frenchies jump up onto?
You might be reading this blog post because you want to know how high a French Bulldog can jump due to concerns you have in your home, here are some other things to know.
Can a French Bulldog jump on a couch or sofa?
Our sofa is 50 cm (19.7 inches) high. Claude the Frenchie has no problems jumping up onto it with a short run up, and yours probably won’t either.
He couldn’t do this as a puppy, but once he was around 12 months old, he was tall and strong enough to jump up onto the couch.
Can a French Bulldog jump onto a bed?
Most Frenchies are tall enough to be able to jump up onto a bed with no problems. Our bed is 60 cm (23.6 inches) high, and Claude can jump up onto it relatively easy as you will see towards the end of our video.
It’s the getting down again that they will struggle with though, and with some Frenchies you might need to give them a helping hand to get down if they are smaller than Claude.
Can a French Bulldog jump over a baby or stair gate?
You might be using a stair or baby gate in your home to stop your Frenchie from getting into other rooms and want to know whether they will be able to jump over it.
The answer is a resounding no… French Bulldogs simply don’t have the leg length and leaping strength to jump over something as tall as stair gate.
Can French Bulldog jump over a fence?
There is no way a French Bulldog can jump high enough to get over something like a picket fence. If you have picket fencing surrounding your yard or garden, I would be very certain that they won’t be able to mount an escape bid.
Even if they ran at full pelt towards the fence, they would not be able to get high enough to jump over your fencing.
Is jumping high bad for French Bulldogs?
In truth, yes it can be. Frenchies are prone to a huge amount of health problems (see the list here). In my blog post about Frenchies climbing stairs I noted the following risks:
- Hip dysplasia: this is a canine genetic condition which commonly occurs in older Frenchies. It happens when a displacement occurs between the hip joint and thigh and will lead to walking difficulties and pain.
- Patellar luxation: this is the medical name for a kneecap dislocation and is another common health issues in French Bulldogs. It can occur due to knee trauma, as degenerative arthritis, or due to a genetic malformation.
- Intervertebral disc disease: this is a degeneration of the disc in your Frenchie’s spine. It is an age-related condition in most cases, but can still occur in younger dogs, in particular the French Bulldog breed.
Based on that, the jumping experiment I showed you in this video isn’t something that we would recommend you do yourselves, as it could lead to a hip or disc problem.
We certainly won’t be doing our test again, as we don’t want Claude to develop any of the problems that could arise from jumping high.
Handy Hint: For more detail on these problems, read the guide to why jumping is bad for French Bulldogs.
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If you enjoyed this video and blog about the height that a French Bulldog can jump up, then you might also enjoy the similar articles I’ve published below.
Conclusion
So, there you have it, you now have a very rough idea on how high a French Bulldog can jump, whether they can jump up on couches, beds, and over fences.
It wasn’t the most scientific of studies, but I had a lot of fun testing this out. We hope you enjoyed the video!
Training Tip: Whilst it was fun seeing how high Claude can jump, one problem we wanted to stop was him jumping up at people and strangers. Read this training guide which explains how to stop a French Bulldog from jumping up in 5 simple to understand steps.
Watch our video on Frenchie speed trials…
A few weeks after this blog was published, we also decided to track how fast a French Bulldog can run. We used GPS and radar to track Claude’s speeds. You can see the results on this blog post about French Bulldog top speeds, and see the experiment in action on the video below.
Our new social media accounts…
Just in case you didn’t know, we’ve just created accounts on Pinterest (view our profile) where you can see some funny French Bulldog photos we collate. We are also answering questions on the popular Quora website when people want to know about Frenchies. See our profile on Quora if you want to ask a question!