Tula Has a Heart of Gold
Tula went into full labor last night — about four days early. We took the pups this morning — two of them, one brindle girl, one pied girl. The rest was fluid – a LOT of fluid. My 19 lb girl weighed 26.3 at the vet’s office this morning, and opening her up was like Niagara Falls. I kept asking the vet “Where’s the rest of the puppies? Are you SURE you checked both horns?”.
The bad news — one of the pups did not make it. We never got a heart beat, in spite of her being full sized. The one who didn’t make it wasn’t even in a horn — she was in the body of the uterus. The other pup, the double hooded pied girl, is lovely and thankfully doing well. She has a tiny, perfectly formed, symmetrical heart shaped brindle marking right above her butt. It looks like a stick on tattoo.
So, she is now Bullmarket Absolut Heart of Gold. No call name, until she’s been here a week or so and is doing fine…
As of right now, she’s vigorous, screamy, and eating like a little piglet — just what I want to see in a puppy. So far, so good.
Sean buried her sister under our cedars this afternoon, with the puppy we lost one year ago this week.
Here’s a short video of the baby, taken just a few hours after she was born. Lots of snorking, snuffling noises in this one (hey, they don’t do much at this age).
KNBC Update on Gina Price and Rebel Ridge
An early story that Los Angeles television station KNBC did on Gina Price of Rebel Ridge Kennels turned out to be a crucial piece of evidence in her trial.
Garcia: Our investigation unknowingly provided other pieces of the puzzle, like how many dogs she was selling.
In the footage, Gina Price admits to selling 280 puppies in one year, in contrast to her tax returns showing a negative income for the same year.
Price: Last year I sold 280 some puppies.
Garcia: At $1,600 each, that would mean she pulled in nearly half a million dollars in 2005. Yet according to this federal indictment, prosecutors say Price filed tax returns claiming negative taxable income for that year and the next. Gina Price refused to take the stand, but the jury still heard from her when prosecutors subpoenaed our investigation and played it for the jury.
Anna Garcia, KNBC reporter, has been covering the story since it first broke. In this story, she recaps the trial, and includes interviews with victim Richard Sproul and witness for the prosecution Attorney John Hoffman, of Wrong Puppy Fame.
Here’s the link to the full story, with video —
http://www.knbc.com/news/17314363/detail.html
I personally think that John deserves some sort of Frenchie Friend of the Year award. He’s been a tireless champion for our breed — and he doesn’t even own one!
Here you go, John — it’s the first annual “You Deserve a Frenchie Lick for Being Awesome” Award.
Frenchie with a candle fetish & Nell demands a retraction
Veterinary Pet Insurance Announces First Winner in Monthly Contest Highlighting Bizarre Pet Accidents
from The Sun Herald —
BREA, Calif., Aug. 26 — Most people’s diets contain too much sugar. But for Sugar, the Jack Russell terrier, the problem was too much turtle. After meeting a wild turtle in the back yard, Sugar decided to have her new friend for dinner. Sugar’s method for disposing of the turtle’s shell — eating it — left her with a small piece of the shell lodged in her nasal cavity. After weeks of respiratory difficulty and inconclusive X-rays, veterinarians performed surgery and found the piece of shell, which Sugar’s owner, Ginger Reynolds, now has in a small glass tube.
“She started having trouble after eating the turtle, but we really didn’t think that part of the shell was stuck in her nose!” said Reynolds. “The veterinarians had never seen anything like it, and they did an amazing job given the unusual circumstances. Thanks to them Sugar is back to normal.”
Reynolds’ claim for Sugar’s surgery was one of more than 80,000 claims received in the month of July by Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI), the nation’s oldest and largest provider of pet health insurance. A veterinarian’s note included with the claim caught the attention of VPI’s claims department: “Sugar was caught red-pawed eating a turtle.” The claim was considered among other unusual medical claims submitted in July and, at the end of the month, VPI employees voted Sugar’s claim the most bizarre of the bunch.
Though undeniably unique, Sugar’s claim was not without competition. Honorable mentions included Louie, a one-year-old French bulldog who ingested more than 50 tea light candles; Ember, a six-year-old mixed breed dog who chased and caught her own tail, breaking it in several places; Bubba, a two-year-old Boston terrier who was shut into a recliner; and Oakley, a ten-month-old Labrador who ate a box of disposable razors. All of the pets with a claim considered for the distinction have fully recovered and received insurance reimbursement for eligible treatment costs.
50 tea lights? Even Bunny couldn’t eat 50 of them. 20 maybe, but not 50 – although she did eat a clock radio on the weekend.
And now, a statement from Ms. Penelope —
Penelope would like me to point that she is not, contrary to my previous post, cranky. In fact, she’s merely discomfited by the fact that something the size and shape of a cantaloupe is lodged underneath her rib cage.
Point taken, Ms. P, and my apologies.
Penelope says “You carry this around all day and see how rainbows and butterflies you’d be feeling”.