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Heart Time, and Samson Wins!

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Dexter and Heart

Poor Heart — I think she’s been over shadowed by the Nellkins lately. Fear not, she’s been getting lots of attention, and loads of playtime.

Last night, Sean let her play on the floor with the other dogs for a while, where she discovered two new loves: Hoofies and Dexter.

Sean managed to get some photos of Heart playing with Dexter, doing the typical puppy play bow/hide under stuff/bark/repeat sequence. He also shot a small film of her really, really enjoying a Hoofie. Man, those things are so disgusting – they stink up your house with a fine mist of glue funk – but boy, do the dogs ever love them.

Speaking of cute puppies, congratulations to Samson from San Francisco. This adorable, ice cube loving French Bulldog was crowned “Cutest Dog” in Nick at Nite’s First Annual Worldwide Fido Awards. The awards ceremony was broadcast live on Nickelodeon, and apparently Samson and his mom made the trip all the way from San Francisco to accept their award! Make sure to check out the video that nabbed Samson top prize – it’s awfully cute (award winningly so!).

All the new Heart photos are here, on Flickr, or view the slide show. The video is below.


French Bulldog Profile – Weezie is Her Mother's Daughter

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It’s funny the things that can be inherited. Dexter, for example has the exact same mark on the back of his neck as his grandmother, Sailor. It’s a sort of elongated triangle – in fact, when Sailor was a wee thing just a few days old, I said it looked like the sail of boat. Hence her name – Sailor, or Bullmarket Roch the Boat.

There are many things that Weezie (aka Absolut Bullmarket Eloise IceBat, aka Dexter’s sister) has inherited from her mother, Bunny.

Doe Eyed Weezie

She has Bunny’s limpid, doe eyed gaze. She has Bunny’s snowy white coat, which is as soft as down to the touch, and extremely snuggly (Dexter, on the other hand, has coarse, steel wool hair, more similar to his great Grandmother, Tessa).

Butterscotch Ear Spots

Weezie even has her mommy’s caramel ear spots – little tiny butterscotch colored polka dots on the backs of her ears. These spots are what tell us that both Weezie and her mom are, despite appearances to the contrary, not genetically ‘white dogs’, but are actually fawn pieds. Color in Frenchies – it’s a baffling thing.

Destructo Dog!!

Weezie has inherited something else from her mommy – the ‘rip it to shreds’ gene.

That’s the gene that makes her decide to shred an entire dog bed, much to the dismay of her much better behaved Puggie brothers, Nixon and Linus.

Nixon and Linus remind me of a pair of quiet, rather sedentary bachelors who have suddenly had their house invaded by a leather jacket clad, juvenile delinquent teenage girl.

I picture them huddling together, reminiscing about the days when the most excitement they got was the premiere of a new episode of Antique Roadshow.

Nixon's Birthday Party

It’s an awfully good thing that Weezie’s mom and dad love her as much as they do, but how could you not love such a cute face? After all, it’s something else she inherited from her mom – the ability to be so adorable that you forgive her for all her bad behavior.

Daddy's Girl

You can see the rest of Weezie’s photos here. She’s awful, but she’s also awfully cute!

Jacques and Jewels and Frenchie Bunk Beds

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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!

So much for her girlish figure…

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Tula is waay pregnant

If I had any remaining doubt about Tula being preggers, it went out the window when I shot this photo of her. Holy cow!

Honestly, I hadn’t really noticed how huuuuge she was until I took a good look at this picture. Considering how svelte Tula normally is, this is a pretty dramatic change for a dog who’s only one month and change into her 62 day pregnancy.

Dexter sits pretty

Dexter continues to grow up – unfortunately, he’s started to sit when there’s food on offer. When it’s snacking time, all the dogs have to do a good, solid sit to get their treat – looks like he learned by imitation.

Uh oh…

That’s a no no for a dog with a (hopeful) future in the conformation show ring. Back to the drawing board – I need to train him the ‘stand’ command all over again. On the plus side, way to learn the sit command, Dexter! Now, just don’t tell Barb.

Hey, want to see some old photos of our dogs? I just uploaded almost 160 old French Bulldog photos onto Flickr – and I have about another 200 to scan. These ones aren’t organized yet – they don’t even really have proper titles, but feel free to check them out. There are some interesting shots in there – take this one, for example:

Diva, Felix and Dragon

That’s a shot of Felix, to the left, and Diva, in the center, along with their siblings.

Diva is Bunny’s mom, and Tula’s great grandmother. Felix is Elliott’s dad. So, in this photo, you have two dogs who will both appear in the pedigree of the puppies Tula is carrying. This is important, since the dogs who came before my dogs today, will influence the dogs that we produce tomorrow.

Interesting stuff, if you’re interested in that kind of stuff.

A bit of this, a bit of that…

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The website overhaul on BullmarketFrogs is pretty much complete. I have some fine tuning to do, and a few pages left to put content on, but other than that it’s all there. Have a look and leave me some feedback.

I’m a bit concerned about this overhaul. I re arranged the way the file folders within the site are arranged – less nested files, deleting old and un needed folders, that sort of thing. Spring cleaning for your domain, if you’d like. Google, however, has the old file addresses cached, which means it’s going to start throwing 404 errors pretty soon. Anyone know how long it takes for Google to read your updated xml site maps?

Tula has gotten her appetite back, and then some. She’s currently a ravenous beast, eating 1 1/2 times her normal food, and hungry in between meals. Her sides are swelling out, and tight as a drum. Fair to say we’re pretty sure she’s pregnant…

Penelope, on the other hand, is off her food – and this from a dog who normally yips with frustration while she waits for you to fill her food dish. She’ll eat, but only if you add extra treats to her food. Fussy little monkey.. she’s right on schedule for this kind of behaviour, boding well for her pregnancy also.

Dexter and Petal had a face to face confrontation on the front porch this morning. Dex was completely freaked out, jumping straight into the air and yelping “What the hell is THAT?” when he saw her. Petal was so not afraid of him – she glanced at him, shrugged a typical ‘dogs, what morons’ kind of shrug, and went back to washing her paws. Within a few minutes, they were play wrestling and having a grand old time.

Bunny got creative the other door, when I accidentally left a folding hardwood chair where she could get at it. Within the space of two hours, she demolished every single inch of the chair – the leather seat, the foam stuffing underneath it, the legs, the slat back, the feet – everything. It’s the most thorough destruction I’ve ever seen by a French Bulldog. My fault completely, of course, for leaving a chair where she could get it, and you almost have to admire her dedication. She doesn’t just gnaw – she annihilates. She’s one nutty Bunny, that’s for sure.