Bulldog saw service throughout World War II on convoy escort duty during the Battle of the Atlantic and in the Arctic.

With a maximum of 390 long tons (400 t) of fuel oil she had a range of 4,800 nautical miles (8,900 km; 5,500 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph).

[15] Bulldog was completed on 8 April 1931 at a cost of £221,408, excluding items supplied by the Admiralty such as guns, ammunition and communications equipment.

She remained with the 4th Flotilla until January 1939 and made multiple deployments off the coast of Spain enforcing the arms embargo until 31 March 1938, when she was refitted, at Sheerness Dockyard.

Bulldog was briefly assigned to the Gibraltar Local Flotilla in January 1939, until she became plane guard for the aircraft carrier Glorious in the Mediterranean in March.

[16] In October she was deployed with Glorious, the battleship Malaya and the destroyer Daring as part of a Hunting Group in the Indian Ocean, based at Socotra.

She sailed to Malta with Glorious in January 1940 to refit, returning to plane guard duty for Ark Royal during March.

[16] Bulldog joined the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow and sailed on 9 May, with a force consisting of the cruiser Birmingham and thirteen destroyers, to search off the mouth of the Skagerrak for German minelayers.

She sailed for Le Havre, on 9 June, to assist in the evacuation of British troops during Operation Cycle and was severely damaged by three hits from German aircraft that knocked out her steering gear.

Sub-Lieutenant David Balme of Bulldog led a boarding party that removed the Enigma coding machine, maps and various codebooks.

[21] Bulldog remained on Atlantic convoy duties until October, when she sailed to Fairfields in Govan, for conversion to an escort destroyer, a process that lasted until February 1942.

As part of the conversion, a Type 271 target indication radar was installed above the bridge, replacing her director-control tower and rangefinder.

[22] Bulldog was an unattached ship assigned to Western Approaches Command from 10 February 1942, and aided the destroyer Richmond after she had collided with the American merchant ship SS Francis Scott Key on 31 March[9] whilst escorting Convoy PQ 14 from Oban, Scotland to Reykjavík, Iceland.

Bulldog returned home in October for a lengthy refit at Portsmouth Dockyard that lasted from 8 November to 24 May 1944.

Upon completion on 30 January 1945, Bulldog escorted convoys between Plymouth and various Irish ports for the remainder of the war.

On 9 May 1945, she sailed to Guernsey where she participated in the Liberation of the German-occupied Channel Islands with German officers surrendering to British representatives on board the ship.