Bullmarket French Bulldog Breeders

Preparing for Penelope's Puppies

We’re in the final few days before Penelope is due to whelp her puppies, and as a result today was moving day. Tula and Heart have been downstairs, in the room we’ve designated as our ‘whelping room’. It’s basically a spare bedroom off of our family room, which we’ve tiled and added a large wall heater to. It has all of our puppy supplies in it, from heating pads to rubbing alcohol to wet wipes, and the walls are covered with photos of puppies past. I’m sure it makes for an interesting ambience for the overnight guests who stay in it from time to time.

Heart in the Upstairs bedroomSince this room is the most convenient for me to get to quickly throughout the day while I’m working, it makes sense to put the youngest puppies into it. That meant moving Tula upstairs, to the second spare bedroom.

I’ve never before had to move a mother with a young puppy, and I was a bit apprehensive that Tula might be nervous at being in a new place. We moved the pool she’d been using downstairs, and I kept the same pad and towel in it for her, in hopes it would give her a sense of continuity.

Turns out, I didn’t need to worry.

After ten minutes of sniffing around, Tula popped into the whelping box and settled down to nurse Heart (who couldn’t have cared less about where we moved her, so long as her personal milk bar came along for the ride).

The next step was to let Penelope come into the downstairs whelping room for a good sniff around. She looked at the pool, shrugged, and walked over to the bed and waited for me to pick her up. I popped her into the whelping box and suggested she take a good look around, as she was about to spend quite a bit of time in there, like it or not.

Again with the shrugging, although this time she deigned to at least pretend some interest in the towels and whelping pad. Honestly, she was more concerned with getting out the living room and grabbing one of the good hooves before Dexter got to it. I’m not sure the whole ‘motherhood thing’ concept has kicked in yet with her.

There’s a baby monitor base set up in the upstairs bedroom, and the hand held unit is downstairs, where I can turn it on. This will let me sit with Penelope and her puppies, and listen to Tula and Heart at the same time.

We had it on during dinner, and Sean and I spent ten minutes trying to figure out what the hell Tula was doing up there. We heard what sounded like light construction, including what could possibly have been a load of gravel being dropped out, perhaps for foundation work. Every time the sounds became too intriguing, one of us would dash upstairs, only to find Tula sitting innocently in the whelping box, looking at us with an expression that clearly said “What did you expect to find?”.

I’m thinking about installing one of those Nanny cam things, just so we can figure out where she’s stashing the backhoe.

Heart of Gold continues to grow exponentially cuter with each passing day. If she continues on at this rate, she will radiate a force field of cuteness that can be felt all the way in California. Today, she did the coveted “tongue stuck out milk bubble ear twitch” triple combination, which I believe has been made illegal in two states and at least one territory.

If you look at the large version of this photo, you can see her little nose freckles starting to appear. Over time, they’ll increase in number until her nose and muzzle are completely black. On her ear, you can see the little fringe of white hairs that outline the top edge. It’s a tiny, perfect little outline.

For more cuteness, check out her other photos here.

7 replies
  1. DesignerDogs
    DesignerDogs says:

    We found you on Twitter & very glad now…What a Wonderful blog post, We are defenitely going to spend some more time here reading 🙂

    We have a question, we have never had puppies before today, we are up to 5 right now, is there any additional cleaning we should do, or just let mom take care of all of it ?

    We are most curious about the cords, do you disinfect them ?

    Please feel free to answer on our webpage, perhaps more people want to know, & you can leave a link to your blog if you desire.
    You are a great writer !

    Thank You, Sam

  2. Jennifer
    Jennifer says:

    Love the new format….glad to hear Tula and Heart are doing well. Keeping my fingers crossed that all goes well with Penelope. Not sure what I think about the above poster….why are you breeding dogs you have “rescued”. All purebred dogs have a standard they need to conform to . In a perfect world the idea is to breed dogs to conform to that standard. To produce the ideal dog. The rest usually go to pet homes and are spayed/neutered. Mixed breeds don’t have a standard. There are a lot of lovely mixed dogs out there. Many at the pound or in rescue…why are you producing more? Designer Dogs (cringe)

  3. DesignerDogs
    DesignerDogs says:

    The ‘Idea’ is to not encounter the inherited diseases purebred dogs are prone to, especially in the large breeds we have. By mixing a Pure Shepard & Pure Rottwieller the likelyhood of Hip Problems among a myriad of other inhereted diseases are completely wiped out, obviously combining two excellent dogs that have been vetted in their breed standard as good breeding dogs has many benefits, if not the Labradoodle would not be a breed today.

    So, Thank You for asking !

  4. Jennifer
    Jennifer says:

    FYI rotties and shepherds both get hip dysplasia big time, they also both get thyroid problems, skin conditions and CANCER, Did you test both parents for all of the above did you have their eyes cerf’d before you bred? Do you guarantee against any and all of the above?
    While you claim you could be wiping out genetic diseases you do realize you could be doubling up on them. BTW do you charge for these puppies? Dogs who are rescued usually come from not so great circumstances at the least losing their family and homes due to whatever reasons. So instead of providing them a safe place to live out their lives or finding them a new forever home you choose to breed them. You shouldn’t even call yourself rescue. A true rescue would never ever ever breed their dogs.

  5. DesignerDogs
    DesignerDogs says:

    Both of our dogs have been vetted for hip issues & cleared for breeding, This conversation is over here.

    If you really need to vent feel free to have at it on our website, we created a few spaces just for you.

    Thank You for your diligent concerns.

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