Carol and Tessa in Toronto, 2004
FrogDog Blog is written by Carol Gravestock, who has been obsessive compulsively addicted to French Bulldogs since she first saw a rather horrid photo of three leashed and huffing European bred Frenchies in a book about dog breeds of the world.
Obtaining her first French Bulldog in 1989, she quickly embarked on a journey she still refers to as “How to learn everything that can possibly go wrong with a French Bulldog in five agonizing lessons”. After purchasing dogs with (in no particular chronological order) megaesophagus, severe and crippling hip dysplasia and patellar luxations, stenotic nares, elongated soft palate, and, in a final grace note, chondro dwarfism, your average intelligent person would have given up and moved on to raising something simple, like orchids. Or unicorns.
Not Carol, though.
She stuck it out, found some good dogs from great breeders, and set up shop under the kennel name “Bullmarket”. She whelped her first litter in 1990, and has been happily immersed in all things French Bulldog ever since. She also proudly lays claim to the dubious distinction of having created the first ever French Bulldog site on the web – the oft lamented (by her, at least) French Bulldog Frenzy, on bulldog.org. It later morphed in FrenchBulldog dot Org, and has been re incarnated in one form or another ever since. It’s now known as FrenchBulldogZ.Org, and can be found here.
Carol partnered with Barb Brown of Absolut French Bulldogs in 1997, and the two co bred under the combined “Absolut Bullmarket” prefix until Barb Brown passed away from Breast Cancer in 2009. The annual Barb Brown Memorial Frenchie Walk is held in her every year, in her home town of Traverse City, Michigan.
Carol resides in a small town in southwestern Ontario with her long suffering partner, Sean, and an ever changing assortment of French Bulldogs, a confused formerly feral cat and a goof ball Mastiff that believes Frenchies are the devil.
Oh, and you can learn more about the Bullmarket and Absolut French Bulldogs here.
Hi Carol!
We’re relatively new frenchie owners and are loving ever minute of it! Love your blog, too! Thanks for all your hard work on it.
A friend of ours make little pet “action figures” (i.e. stuffed dolls). We recently asked her to make one of our Napoleon, and she is now making them available for other frenchie owners. She’ll custom make them from a photo of a pup. Anyway.. thought I would pass it along in case you or any of your readers might like one, too.
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=8796
(I have no financial interest in this, for the record)
Have a great day,
Sean