First Video – Tula’s French Bulldog Puppies

Striker, Paula’s little pied boy that Tula is fostering, is having a few problems. He’s losing weight, and is substantially smaller than Tula’s beefy little boys (who’ve gained 30 grams or so each, in less than 24 hours, while Striker has lost 15). The differences are even more striking when I remind myself that he’s almost three days older than the boys.

He’ll be getting some extra nursing time, and is also receiving subcutaneous fluids – which is a nice way of saying that a few times a day I’ll be injecting fluids into him with a needle that’s longer than he is. The fluids go in ‘subcutaneous’, meaning ‘under the skin’, as opposed to injected into muscle tissue, so he rarely does more than squirm a bit while I’m hydrating him. I’m the one who’s being a big baby about it.

Hopefully, we’re just playing catch up with the ground he lost while he was being bottle fed. If you didn’t cross your fingers for us yesterday, it would be nice if you did so today.

And then there were THREE

Tula wonders "Where the heck did HE come from?"

Poor Tula. She goes to sleep at the vet clinic, she wakes up with two puppies. She comes home, has a nap – and wakes up with one more. If this keeps up, she’ll be afraid to ever go to sleep again.

Tula is doing some surrogate mothering – Paula’s singleton French Bulldog puppy (out of Elliott, which makes him sort of our Grandpuppy by proxy) has been having a hard time of it. His mom, Lucy, has no milk at all, and they’ve been getting up every three hours to bottle feed him. Worst of all, he’s not been doing well on the bottle. Since Tula loves her puppies, and has enough milk to open her own dairy bar, I suggested we tuck him in with Tula’s kids.

He arrived this afternoon, wrapped in a pink blanket and looking terribly small and thin. He’s almost two a half days older than the boys, but weighs just 209 grams to their 289 and 297 gram weights (that’s the fawn boy, who is something of a chow hound). Since he got here, I’m not sure he’s once let go of the nipple. Maybe he’s afraid that if does, it will either disappear, or dry up. Unlike Tula’s boys, who are still nameless for now, the little pied guy is named “Striker” (although I might lobby to have it changed to ‘Sucker’).

Tula had an initial moment or two of “I’m pretty that this is not mine” type hesitancy, but since he’s now covered in her milk and has been sleeping nuzzled up against her boys, she’s just fine with it. I’m going with the theory that she just thinks maybe she miscounted them.

Photos here, or on Flickr. Video later on, if I get the chance.

News Report on Stolen Chicago French Bulldog Puppy

Delilah Blue
CBS News in Chicago has done a story on Delilah Blue, the French Bulldog puppy stolen from right inside her owner’s home.

More details here.

Excerpt:

in Chicago, a French bulldog named Delilah has been gone since Sunday. That’s when her owner says she met the guy who took her. They’d been walking in a park near their home in the Pilsen area.

The dog’s owner, Beth Gottlieb, says she let the man into her house to use the restroom. She believes that while he was there, he unlatched a door that he would later use to get inside and steal the dog.

“The same exact person stole a dog from a pet store, and it’s an assault,” Gottlieb said. “I think it’s a crime ring.”

She says police dusted her door for fingerprints, and they’re working on a second case with a suspect fitting the same description. Gottlieb said the man who stole her dog had shaved eyebrows, multiple ear-piercings, tattoos on the sides of his neck and a tattoo on his arm that says “Alexi” or “Alexa.”

Animal experts say they’ve found thieves selling dogs like Delilah on the Internet for hundreds, even thousands, of dollars.

More details on this case, along with contact information – https://www.bullmarketfrogs.com/blog/2010/02/more-on-the-stolen-chicago-french-bulldog/

Please keep spreading the word, and please keep watching your newspaper classifieds, Buy and Sell type papers, and on line ads for French Bulldog puppies for sale matching Delilah Blue’s description.

Just Born Babies

Tula and her newborn French Bulldog puppy

Tula and her black masked fawn boy

Not much time, but here are some photos of Tula’s newborn French Bulldog puppies – two boys, one black masked fawn, and one black masked silver brindle. It was fun getting to and from the vet’s office – we’re under a severe winter storm warning, and the roads I drove on were basically slicks of ice, in several places.

Everyone is doing well, but Tula has some rather worrisome cyst like growths on her uterus. We’ll be spaying her in ten weeks, per the vet’s instructions – she was reluctant to do it now, and prefers to wait for the uterus to be less engorged before she removes it. Hopefully, the spay will take care of whatever the growths are – but some crossed fingers wouldn’t hurt.

Tula is, as always, being a doting and attentive mother.

Photos below, or on Flickr.

Friday Zen – Crying Frenchie Puppy

Crying French Bulldog puppy sounds like kitten

Is it just me, or does this little guy sound JUST like a kitten meowing? I believe we have a strong contender here for the Gold Medalist winner, in Frenchie Death Yodel, Junior Edition competition.