Tuesday 24 May 2022 01:28 AM This poor creature is part of cruel craze for dogs bred with bizarre features trends now

Fluff Puff Husky Boy is no everyday dog. His appearance is certainly striking: bright blue eyes, a short, squashed muzzle and an almost feathery white coat with flashes of pink.

But his looks, perhaps, are not the most surprising thing about him.

Reared in Chelmsford, Essex, Fluff Puff was recently sold to a Texas breeder to work — we believe — as a stud dog. And the price paid? An astonishing $1 million (£780,000). That's if we take his breeder, Diego Sanchez — whose breeding outfit Dezinerbullz is licensed by his local council in Maldon — at his word.

In video footage, Sanchez, a Colombian national, is seen delivering Fluff Puff to his new American owner at a luxury London flat. Fluff Puff was then flown to Houston: it was, according to Sanchez, a historic moment.

In a separate post online, Sanchez boasted that Fluff Puff was 'unique . . . long-awaited, so very rare and so special', adding: 'He was recently sold by @dezinerbullzfamily for 1 Million!!!'

Even allowing for a significant degree of exaggeration, there is no doubt that Fluff Puff is a highly desirable asset. For he is a 'Frankenpup': and a stud at that, capable of siring a long line of puppies bearing his own highly unusual physical characteristics.

In Britain and America, there is a craze for French bulldogs — now the second most popular breed here despite the litany of health problems they often suffer. According to The Kennel Club, demand for French bulldogs has soared by 1,000 per cent in the past decade. Celebrity bulldog enthusiasts include Holly Willoughby, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Hugh Jackman and Reese Witherspoon.

Diego Sanchez's legal breeding business shows that vast amounts of money can be made on designer dogs.

For many people, a typical 'Frenchie' is not enough. Unscrupulous breeders are therefore concocting ever-weirder specimens in canine 'fertility clinics': artificially inseminating dogs and delivering the puppies by caesarean section, as the bitches' narrow pelvises mean they cannot deliver naturally.

The result is dogs bred as fashion accessories, often appearing in 'gangsta' videos on social media, carried around by scantily clad women while the male breeders drive expensive sports cars and emerge from helicopters.

French bulldogs that are either 'hairless' or — as in Fluff Puff's case — have particularly soft and downy fur carry the highest prices. A cross between a French bulldog and a husky, Fluff Puff stands to make his new owner a fortune.

The profits from 'Frankenpups' are staggering — as the Daily Mail can reveal after a lengthy investigation.

In poorly regulated clinics across Britain, they are being bred for ever more bizarre physical characteristics: completely flat faces that leave them gasping to breathe, rolls of skin that render them half-blind and unable to blink properly, and baldness that leaves them prone to sunburn, skin cancer and other ailments.

Some are selected for the fashionable shades of their coats: now in vogue are 'pink', 'platinum', 'isabella' (a washed-out beige) and 'merle', an almost patterned appearance. Vets warn that dogs with merle coats often suffer from serious genetic defects, especially deafness.

Only last week, the experts said that the fad for pugs to have bulging eyes, folds of skin and flat faces is causing them to suffer terribly.

Pugs are more than 50 times at risk of serious breathing problems than other breeds and are far more likely to be afflicted by health problems including agonising eye ulcers and dermatitis.

Yet many Frankenpups make the suffering of pugs look easy. Too often, these dogs die painfully and young of excruciating congenital diseases.

Though there is no suggestion that Mr Sanchez is involved in any illegal activity, it is clear — as his '£1 million' boasts attest — that he is a significant figure in the designer dog industry.

In 2018, he sold a 50 per cent 'share' in one of his bulldogs, Douglas, for $235,000 (£177,000) to an American breeder. The dog, which struggled to breathe, was flown to the U.S. and found to have a serious heart murmur. It had to be put down aged just 16 months.

Mr Sanchez bred Douglas with another local breeder named Barry Macklin, who runs Unique Essex Bullz. They are endorsed on Facebook by the troubled former EastEnders actress Danniella Westbrook, an on-off cocaine addict.

Today, on Sanchez's public 'price list', a 'fluffy' French bulldog starts at £80,000. (As a stud, Fluff Puff would be expected to cost considerably more.) Sanchez is licensed by Maldon Council to breed up to 50 puppies a year.

Records at Companies House show that his firm, Dezinerbullz, was compulsorily struck off in February, although it continues to advertise dogs online.

In 2020, Sanchez's business partner, Susan Bello-Pearson, was found guilty of 12 offences of supplying and possessing unauthorised veterinary medicines. She was fined £5,000. A spokesman for Maldon Council told the Mail that the council had no power to withdraw the breeding licence as a result of this conviction.

For all his boasting on Facebook about his 'special' dog, Mr Sanchez refused to speak to the Mail or answer any of our questions. 'I not interested,' he told us by text.

Yet others are prepared to speak out against the Frankenpups industry. British Veterinary Association (BVA) president Justine Shotton, told us: 'Dogs bred to have certain characteristics, such as being hairless, having more skin wrinkles or faces that are even flatter than normal, may look 'cute' or unique. But these poor dogs may have a lifetime of suffering ahead.'

In just five years, the number of canine 'clinics' breeding ever more freakish dogs has grown from just one to more than 150. A report from the animal welfare charity Naturewatch Foundation found that these clinics, run by unqualified practitioners, are regularly performing highly dangerous procedures on unfortunate dogs.

In almost all cases, artificial insemination is being used to breed dogs that would otherwise be unable to mate, while hormones taken from pigs are used illegally to boost litter sizes and increase profits. Many of these procedures, including taking blood samples and artificial insemination, are illegal unless performed by a registered vet.

Fabian Rivers, a Birmingham vet who sits on the BVA council, told the Mail: 'It has become a free-for-all. The clinics are getting away with murder — they are making so much money.

'They are breeding these poor dogs with terrible health problems often in conditions that are completely illegal and dangerous. Some of the clinics are run by rank amateurs with no training and no veterinary knowledge at all.'

So what kind of people are drawn into the murky world of breeding Frankenpups?

Earlier this year, Britain

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