Petal Freaks, Lola has a B-Day and Butterscotch Ear Spots

/7 Comments/in /by

Happy Birthday, Lola! Happy Birthday to youoooooo!

Lola's Birthday Party

Ms. Lola Banana – aka Bullmarket Chiquita Lolita – celebrated her 10th birthday this past weekend. Birthday cake (OK, grass fed beef burgers), party hats and presents were on hand, and Lola’s little ‘sister’, Sushi, was more than happy to share in the booty, even if it meant wearing an octopus hat as partial payment.

Octopus Hat Sushi

Maggie, mom to Sushi and Lola, asked if Lola and Weezie were related. The butterscotch ear polka dots and wanton toy chewing just seemed to be too much of a coincidence. They are related!

Lola is mother to Diva
Diva is mother to Bunny
Bunny is mother to Weezie

.. that makes Lola Weezie’s great grandmother. Here are Bunny’s ear polka dots –

Bunny's Ear Polka Dots

.. Now I just need a photo of Lola’s ear spots, and we can make a sort of ear polka dot family album. God, I need a hobby.

Poor Petal is having a hard time adjusting to life as a house cat — well, to life as our house cat, that is. I suppose part of it is having lived as an outdoors cat for this long – she gets panicky if she doesn’t have constant access to a door open to the outdoors.

Petal Blends In

We’ve arranged sort of a compromise. I leave the door from the kitchen into the garage partially open, and the door from the garage to the outdoors cracked open a bit. This lets Petal go in and out of the house when she feels panicked or threatened (She’s not used to the dogs yet, even though they mostly ignore her). She spends a lot of time sleeping on an old chair we had stored in the garage. I’ve set it up, and put a fleece pad on the seat for her to sleep on. We call it her ‘throne chair’.

Petal's Throne Chair

When I’m upstairs, Petal seems to enjoy hanging out in the kitchen and living room. She sleeps on the couch, even if it is with one eye open, and she enjoys walking on the kitchen island while I’m prepping food. She’s a very curious little cat – very interested in everything going on. She is also incredibly affectionate – she enjoys climbing up and riding on my shoulder, and will happily roll over to have her belly tickled.

Tula has three weeks to go, and she looks like a little moo cow more and more every day. Poor girl!

Tula's Pregnant Belly

Jacques and Jewels and Frenchie Bunk Beds

/2 Comments/in , /by

My plans for the weekend included a drive to Tobermory, with some kayaking around Fathom Five National Park, and maybe some swimming thrown in for good measure. Mother nature said “Nice try”, and rewarded me with two days of non stop rain and thunderstorms, so I’ve spent the weekend playing ’email catch up’. That’s where I dig through the stratified layers of unanswered mail in my in box, and file and upload all the photos people have sent to me that I’ve buried on the third page of my Gmail account.

In the morning, though, I shot these photos of Dexter and Penelope, sleeping together on the couch. They were playing a game of “Frenchie Bunk Beds” – first Dexter slept on Penelope.

Then they swapped spots, and Penelope slept on Dexter (as fat as she’s getting, I think Dexter got the worst of the deal).

Imagine my happy surprise, then, when I found this photo, titled “Bunk Beds”, in a group of pictures sent to me from Carol Rowbo –

Jacques and Jewel are brother and sister Brindle Frenchies that were bred by Barb. They live in NYC, with their owner, Carol Rowbo. Here’s a gallery of their photos (as you can no doubt tell, they’re extremely photogenic).

Jacques and Jewels’ mom Lola is now retired and also living in NYC, with Lauren Melkus. Lola rules the roost over her adopted little ‘brother’, Tucker. Here’s a photo of Lola, luxuriating in life in New York.

Oh, and Jacques and Jewels’ litter sister, Isabella, showed in New York at Westminster this past February. Maybe next year, her family (or at least her family’s family) can come out and cheer her on. Here she is, on the carpet at the Gardens.

The last piece in this puzzle — Tucker was formerly know as ‘Harley‘, and he’s Dexter’s litter brother!

OK, now we can all hum ‘It’s a Small World’.

Coming up next week in blog postings:

Izzy Eats EVERYTHING
Lola Updates and Photos
GiGi gets even cuter
Responsible Frenchie Breeders Launches
Frenchies in the UK
.. and lots of other stuff, including some musings on trying to turn an outside, semi feral cat into a house pet (hint: it’s not easy).

Unless the sun comes up, in which case I’m outta here and off to the beach!

A Blue Dog Update (the OTHER Kind of Blue French Bulldog)

/2 Comments/in , /by

It’s always a wonderful surprise to have someone pop up and say “Hey, remember me? We got so and so from you”.

In this case, so and so is actually an adorable little guy named Blue, out of Tessa’s very first litter. Blue was a handsome, spunky little boy, and he’s grown up to be a still handsome, spunky little guy.

Here’s the lovely note that Blue’s mom, Jennie Leto, sent along for me to share:

Blue

I got Blue from Carol Gravestock when he was 7 months old. He came charging down the
stairs and I was in love. He is now 11 and he still comes charging down the stairs, or
racing after birds, or squirrels, or bunnies. He absolutely loves life and I thank Carol and
God every day that he is in my life. This past year has been a huge transition for Blue,
since I had a baby girl named Lillian.

Blue came through like a trooper and Lily and Blue are in love. He is her protector,
her buddy, her furry sibling. Boo Boo was her first words, before Dadda and Mamma,
and Boo Boo is the first one she asks for every morning. Before we drop my daughter off
at daycare we drop Boo Boo at my parent’s house for his daycare.

Blue’s other favorite people are my niece and nephew Avery and Caleb. Caleb just kisses
him all day long, and Avery is so gentle with him. The only thing is that Blue doesn’t think
he is a dog. When Lily, Avery and Caleb are around Blue tries to get in the middle of
everything they are doing and participate. He tries to color and play ball and play dolls,
and this past Easter Blue didn’t understand why Grandpa didn’t want to take a picture of
him in the Easter backdrop he set up for the kids shots. Blue is stubborn, lovable,
adorable, and such a blessing to our whole family. He is such a handsome boy, people
look at him and compliment him before my daughter.

We treasure Boo Boo, thank you Carol and Tessa (Blue’s Momma), you created a most
amazing Frenchie and we adore and love him so much!!!

Here are some photos of Blue (seriously, is this a handsome face, or what?). Oh, and there are two in there of Blue as baby, one with his entire litter.

More old Frenchie photos…

/1 Comment/in , /by

Still digging through the literally hundreds of old Frenche photos I have stashed away in boxes, bins and books. I’m ashamed to admit that, as I start to get to the bottom of the pile, I’m running into photos of dogs that I have no idea who they are. Granted, they are puppy pictures, but still. Senility, she is le bitch…

Who are you, puppy?
Dunno what puppy this is.. but he’s a cutie!

Here’s someone I could never forget – this is Barb’s lovely Roseanne, aka Bullmarket A&As Stripe Ts. It was a hot day, so her mouth was hanging open, but you can still see what a beautiful girl she was. She was a gorgeous, unusual color – a sort of silvery brindle. Just gorgeous.

Barb's lovely Rosey - Bullmarket A&A's Stripe Ts
Bullmarket A&A Stripe Ts

Here’s another utterly unforgettable beauty – my beloved, and dearly missed, Chicky girl. She was bred by Jane Gil, and her full name was Fulla Bull’s Bullmarket Chicky. Not only was she my joy, but she was my daughter Nicole’s most beloved dog. Chicky was one of the great tragedies of my life – she was, believe it or not, able to climb chain link fence. Funny, isn’t it? Except that she climbed the chain link into our neighbour’s yard, and fell into his pool and drowned. I’ll always, always regret her loss.

Fulla Bull's Bullmarket Chicky
Fulla Bull Bullmarket Chicky

Chicky begat the lovely – and thankfull still her – Lolita, aka Bullmarket Chiquita Lolita. Lola  is celebrating her tenth birthday this weekend, party and all, with her owner Maggie Montgomery (yes, I got the email! Answer coming this afternoon after I get off work). Lola lives with Penelope’s sister, Sushi, in downtown Toronto.

Lola is mom to Felix and Diva, who I posted a photo of yesterday.

Bullmarket Chiquita Lolita, at about age three
Chiquita Lolita

More old photos coming soon, and some of my favorites over on the Frenchie Photo Blog.

Thursday Thirteen – 13 of my favorite French Bulldog photos

/1 Comment/in , /by

I just finished scanning and re touching some old print photographs. I had forgotten how hard it can be to get details out of print images, even ones done at decent photo developing places. Working with digital images for so long has made me complacent about being able to turn little images into big ones, without losing details. Not so, with prints.

Uploading all of these old images sent me on one of those memory lane trips that only old photos seem to be able to inspire. It gave me an idea for this edition of Thursday Thirteen – 13 of my favorite old French Bulldog photographs, in no particular order. You can click on them to see them full sized.