Lazy French Bulldog Puppies
Hammy, aka the Creamsicle Puppy
I went to visit the Butters’ babies, and discovered that somehow, over the last week and changed, they’ve morphed into from French Bulldog puppies into fat baby sloths.
The bigger boy, in particular, has decided that since he has milk on tap, and dedicated humans to pick him up every time he even squeaks, that there’s just no point in walking or doing anything else that burns energy. If he’s lying on his back and you pick him up, he’s quite content to just hang there in your hand, lying on his back with his fat tummy exposed to the world, contemplating the mysteries of life.
Creamsicle, aka Hammy, is happy to have you do whatever you want with him – put him on his back, hold him up in the air and make him do the Hammy Hamster dance, tickle his little toes until his belly wiggles like a bowl of jello.
Lyra, as Paula has named the girl, is a little bit more ambitious – she has one goal in life, and that goal is to get you to feed her. Everything she encounters is tested and tasted, in case it contains food. She also has that adorable Frenchie need to be picked up and carried everyplace – and of course, with a face like hers, it’s hard to say no. So, Lyra spends her every waking moment shrieking until some one comes to get her, or until her mom feeds her (mostly just to get her to shut up).
Butters has had just about enough of motherhood, thank you, and spends most of her time hiding in the corner and pretending that those fat little dumpling kids are no concern of hers. In this she joins the time honored tradition of her mother and half sisters, all of whom think that motherhood is basically just an excuse to hire nannies.
There’s a video of the sloth babies after the cut – the upside down puppy is the bigger boy, and later you’ll see Paula making Hammy do the Hamster dance. It’s amazing what you can get Frenchie puppies to do it you’re bored.
Photos are below the cut, after the video, or over on Flickr.
That’ll teach her
Mary Wild (on left) enters court
Here in south western Ontario, we’re in the middle of a blistering heat wave. My dogs barely want to go outside long enough to pee, and I’ve stopped taking Bunny to work with me, for the time being (I worry about what might happen if I broke down at the side of the road, and had to wait overly long for assistance).
At just about this time last year, professional dog show handler Mary Wild decided that, rather than bring her eight show dog charges inside her air conditioned house for the night, she’d leave them in her van. Mary Wild lives in St. Louis, Missori, and if there’s one thing that I do know it’s that the hottest heat wave in Ontario can’t compare with the average summer day temperature in Missouri.
Mary Wild apparently didn’t get that memo, because she woke up the next day to find all eight dogs either dead or at death’s door from extreme heat exhaustion. I don’t imagine she was too surprised, because testimony at her trial indicated she didn’t do a whole lot to try to keep them cool.
From the St. Louis Dispatch newspaper:
Aubrey Richardson, 17, testified that she had worked as Wild’s assistant, helping her groom, walk and otherwise care for the dogs. She had accompanied Wild to a dog show in Iowa City on June 20 and 21.
Richardson said that when they returned to Wild’s home late on the night of June 21, Wild said they would leave the dogs in the van because the garage was too hot. The normal routine when they were at Wild’s home in the first block of Kroeck Drive in Arnold was that the dogs stayed in crates in the garage.
Wild put six fans inside the van but shut the sliding van door that would normally be cracked open when dogs are left inside. Wild only rolled down a passenger side window enough to fit through the extension cord that powered the fans, Richardson said.
Richardson stayed at Wild’s house and said that when she went to check on the dogs in the morning, it felt “like opening an oven” when she opened the van’s sliding door, even though the fans were still running.
Her show dog, a Dalmatian named Sky, was one of the dogs that died. She cried when she testified about holding his body.
Wild and Richardson, as well as Wild’s mother, tried to revive the dogs for about 40 minutes before taking them to a vet, Richardson said.
She testified that she was shaken when she heard Wild and her mother talking on the ride to the vet’s office “about how much they were going to lose,” Richardson said.
So, what kind of punishment do you actually get for roasting your client’s dogs to death? Jail time? Big fines? Locked in your own van overnight with a fan for company and no windows rolled down?
Not even close.
If you’re a handler in Missouri, you get probation, some community service – and you have to write an essay saying how sorry you are and how it’s probably not a great idea to leave dogs locked in a hot car.
Seriously.
From the Dispatch:
The dog handler who left eight show dogs inside a hot van, causing seven of them to die, was sentenced Thursday to two years’ probation.
Mary Wild also must serve 80 hours of community service at the Jefferson County animal control center, as well as write a 750-word essay on how heat affects dogs and what she should have done to care for them properly.
Well, shit – that will obviously teach her. This is actually a stiffer sentence than was being predicted – we’d heard she was going to have to write “I will not cook dogs to death” on the court room chalkboard 500 times.
In other news, convicted murderers will now be sent to bed with no supper and no TV time.
Jam and Dog Shows
Strawberry Jam and Fresh Corn Muffins. See the sticker on the small jar? I bought 2 dozen of these for .5 cents each at a garage sale this spring.
So, I was sitting around, whining about the fact that, while Leah and Luke are out doing all kinds of fun dog show stuff down in the states, I’m sitting here with no one to show. That’s when it occurred to me that I could show Delilah. And why not? She moves beautifully, she has a great head, and while her front is less than stellar, her over all structure is still definitely finishable. So, I decided to enter her in the Hamilton Kennel Club shows, which for some odd reason take place on June 25, 26 and 27th – that’s a Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I guess they were working on the theory that some businesses were closing the 26th in honor of Canada Day, which is actually July 2st. Or something. Either way, enter we did, only to hear a lot of whining from Sean about how he’d been away for twelve days, and there I was, on almost the only day off we’d be sharing together, trotting off to a dog show.
Fine, so I’d skip Thursday, and just enter her on Saturday and Sunday. That wasn’t much better – more whining about how much stuff we really needed to get caught up on around the house, and what about grocery shopping? And lawn mowing? And were we ever going to swim together in the pool?
Fine. I skipped Friday, even after I’d paid for and entered the show. I’d just go Saturday – that’s today – instead. That’s where Delilah came in – last night, she’s outside peeing, and I notice blood on the ground. Of course she’s bleeding – the one thing that you just don’t do is bring a bitch who’s in season to a dog show, so naturally Delilah would wait until the night before the only dog show I have concrete plans to take her to and she’d start bleeding now. Not next week, now.
This morning, after a nice leisurely sleep in, I get up, check Delilah’s bottom, and discover – nothing. No blood to be seen. I know I wasn’t hallucinating – there’s still some blood stains on the back patio. I can only assume she has a low level bladder infection, which would have in no way stopped me from bringing her to the show today.
Personally, I suspect this was all a plot on Delilah’s part. She’d heard the weather for this weekend, and said to herself “Walk around outside, in the rain? For nothing but a measly piece of liver? You’ve got to be joking”.
So, I spent this morning finishing off the last batch of strawberry jam, baking corn muffins and making semolina pizza dough. Delilah and Bunny ate bits of muffin off of the floor, and traded smug looks with one another on how remarkably easy it is to get humans to do your bidding.
The jam and the muffins turned out quite nicely. The pizza dough will be turned into Stromboli for tonight’s dinner – sausage, mushroom, peppers, fresh mozzarella and home made tomato sauce.
I guess that probably does beat standing around at a dog show in the rain.
updated: while I was writing this, Andrea phoned to tell me that Luke took Winners Dog and Best of Winners today in Valparaiso IN for a 4 pt major! Go Luke!