All posts tagged Delilah

Delilah is French for “Devil Dog”

It’s quite possible that Delilah wins the ‘weirdest French Bulldog ever‘ award, or at least the award for ‘weirdest French Bulldog ever owned or known by me‘ award.

First of all, she still will not come all the way down the stairs. This is not because she’s incapable of it (unlike Dexter, who’s so large in the head that walking downhill causes him to tumble in a slinky-like fashion).

Our stair routine goes something like this -

The stairs from our basement are open at about the half way mark. Delilah, who has no issues going up the stairs, will only come down as far as the opening on the stairs. She lurks there, popping her head over the edge to see what we’re doing. My computer sits right beneath this opening, and I often look up and see her peeking over the side, checking to see if I’ve decided to spontaneously bake her some dog cookies. If she’s in the mood, she will sometimes leap into my arms from this point when I walk over to see her. Usually, though, she waits until I try to approach her, then bolts back to the top of the stairs. It’s like she thinks I have cooties or something. Once she’s sure I’m safely far away from the stairs, she’ll come back down again, for a second look.

Here’s a video of her playing the stair game with me -





If this isn’t enough, there’s the fact that of all the dogs, she’s the only one of our dogs who just will not come when she is called, thus leaving me to play a little game I like to call “Come and get the nice cookie so Mommy can tackle you like a sausage shaped football, you infuriating little beast”. Actually, the term ‘like to call’ is more of a misnomer for ‘am forced to screech every time she gets outside the fence’. Luckily for me, she’s completely food motivated, and would sell her dark little brindle soul for a dried up crumb of milkbone, so I’ll be working on the ‘come!’ command diligently over the next while.

Oh, and I should explain about chairs. Delilah doesn’t sit on them, like normal dogs – she scales the back of them, like some sort of mutant goat. I admit that she’s my ‘go to’ lap dog for chair sitting, but she doesn’t take being left behind very well if I have to get up for any reason. In fact, she barks with a sort of affronted indignation that’s almost as funny as it is alarming. Here’s a short clip of her Majesty expressing her opinion on the topic of my getting up and leaving her.







I’ve threatened to send her to Chicago to live with Hope and Dax, but I like them too much to inflict this kind of punishment on them.

French Bulldog Photo Blogging

It’s finally warming up a little, so the dogs have been spending more time in the garden. Tessa likes to find a sunny spot, either outside or in ‘her’ chair, in front of the french doors. Delilah prefers bug hunting, or eating dandelions.

Photos here on Flicker, or in the slide show below.

Mae’s Pups & a Meditation on Breeding

Wednesday, when I went to bed at 10 pm, Mae was doing fine. No temperature drop, no funny behavior – just Mae, being Mae and looking happy to see me every time I came into the room to check on her, wiggling her Mae Mae butt and grinning her grin.

At 2 am, I woke up out of a dead sleep, convinced something in the house wasn’t right. I came down to check on Mae, and found her nesting in her bed, panting heavily and discharging signs of lochia in her pee. Despite being two days earlier than our earliest estimated due date, Mae was in labor, and there was no time to wait for our regular clinic to open at 8 am.

The emergency vet was wonderful – she worked fast, she anesthetized lightly, and she had the pups out within 10 minutes of getting Mae under and on the table. Unfortunately, two of them were dead before birth, with obvious signs of first stage decay. It kills me that there was nothing that could be done to try to save them.

The third pup, a little cream boy, is doing well, although he’s rather small. He eats well and vigorously, and Mae is being an attentive mom. The poor little solo puppy looks very small and very alone in that big whelping box, with no company. Mr. Monkey will be joining him for snuggling as soon as I give him a good clean, and we’ll give him lots of snuggling, but it really can’t be a substitute for the company of litter mates.

This has been a hard year for me with pups. I haven’t had a litter in almost seven years, and then two out of my first three have dead pups. I know it’s just all about bad luck and bad timing, but it’s hard not to take it personally. I’ve been lucky when it comes to breeding – until now, I’ve only ever lost three pups at birth, one litter due to veterinary negligence, and one week old pup. That’s pretty good, for almost 18 years of breeding. As I said to Sean, if I’d had this kind of bad luck in my first year of breeding, I doubt I’d still be in Frenchies. This kind of heartache is hard to justify on an ongoing basis.

For now, I’m just going to watch over this little tiny one, and give extra hugs and kisses to Dexter, Izzy, Harley and Delilah. I’m more thankful for them now than ever.

Here are a few pictures I shot yesterday. The rest can be found over on Flickr.



Snow, snow, snow – and puppies

Well, we’ve had our first real snowfall – that snow that isn’t going anywhere, at least not until spring. Sean spent a good two hours outside shovelling out the dog runs and walkways. See? Boyfriends can be useful!

I also took some new pix of the Bunny pups, including a few of Dexter, the puppy formerly known as Nigel. I wanted to name him Prince Symbol, but Barb outvoted me.

There’s also a photo in there of Mae, who is as big as a house, and not very happy about it. A week to go at the most, Mae Mae! Hang in there!

Here are a few of the photos, or click here to see them full sized on Flickr.