Filing, Frenchies and D.H. Lawrence
Filing old paper work is an interesting endeavor. You run into things you haven’t seen for years – correspondence from people you’d forgotten you’d written to, snippets of articles started but never finished, research that stalled part way through. I stumbled across an old folder with some of the research I’d used to write an article for the “Historical Frenchies” series I had done for the French Bullytin. This one was on the writer D.H. Lawrence, and his brindle French Bulldog, Bibbles.
Lawrence, author of such famous works as “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and “Women and Men”, was also an accomplished poet. In a collection entitled “Birds, Beasts and Flowers”, he wrote three poems which featured his little brindle Frenchie bitch. The main poem, and the longest in the collection, is entitled ‘Bibbles’. It describes his love for her, and her somewhat indifferent and indiscriminate return of that love. Lawrence then writes of his frustration at her egalitarian approach to affection, her habit of showering everyone she meets with equal adoration –
“To you, whoever you are, with endless embrace!” Read more →
Advice on the Care and Training of Your New Human
Since I am currently busy with work, I’ve asked Tessa to fill in and write a few guest blogs for me. She was busy working on her tan on the back deck, and suggested I re-print this column she wrote back in 2001. She then told me to get her some cookies and a glass of iced tea, which I happily did. Apparently, her training methods work.
Advice on the Care and Training of Your New Human
By Tessa, POTU
The following column is intended to give French Bulldogs advice on how to better train their humans to be loyal, obedient and semi-intelligent pets. Tessa does not condone biting or other cruel methods of training your pet human, but is actually pretty flexible about shock collars. If you are a French Bulldog and have a question on human training you’d like to see addressed here, you may email Tessa at TessaIsQueen@bullmarketfrogs.com Read more →
My Heart
Her eyes are a deep chocolate brown, with long dark lashes. Both are cloudy now, and the left has an opaque area that I’m beginning to worry might be a cataract. I haven’t taken her to the doctor yet, out of fear that he’ll tell me she needs surgery. I don’t want to put her through that, I’m not sure enough that it will help. Her deep chestnut hair is almost completely white, and looking at older photos make me ache. My partner says he prefers her like this, that she looks stately. I don’t want her to be stately – I want her to be young.
Her hips hurt her, too frequently now for my taste. I’ve had to carry her up the stairs a few times, and I worry when she walks on ice. I make sure she takes her supplements, glucosamine and shark cartilage and blue green algae. They probably don’t make any difference, but it’s something I can do to try to stave off the inevitable. It’s been years since she could jump on and off the bed without help, but last week she made it onto the couch – one simple jump, and she was up. I’m not sure who was more amazed, of the two of us. Read more →