French Bulldog Profiles – It's the Mae Mae!
Proof positive that Mae Mae is doing swell in her new home comes to us in the form of a whole bunch o’ photos –
We luv ya, Mae – and it looks like your new mommy loves you, too!
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Bunny Does Tricks, Mae Plays, and Evil Clowns Scare Me
Bunny has been doing the oddest thing lately – she jumps straight into the air, twists at the height of her jump, and does a barrel roll onto the ground. It’s the oddest thing I have ever seen. I’m going to try to catch it on camera if I can — she usually does it when she’s excited to see me, so I’ll have to get Sean to do it, and he’s camera phobic. What is it with some guys? They’ll obsess over minute details while shopping for cameras or camcorders, but actually use them? No thanks.
I shot some video of Mae – Solo’s mom – running around and playing with Delilah, Penelope and Dexter. In one scene, Dex gets right up into Mae’s face and barks his shrill ‘lookatmeLOOKATME‘ bark, until she finally smacks him with a paw. It’s pretty classic. Mae plays exceptionally well with puppies – she just hates Sailor, and the feeling is mutual.
You can find the video embedded below, or here’s the link on YouTube –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y256EQXNOi8
I read a great article on how some kids find clowns terrifying.
LONDON (Reuters) – Unhappy clowns from around the world say a study that reported that children didn’t like them has wiped the big smile from their faces, and have been falling over their large shoes to put their case.
A poll by researchers looking at what decor to put in hospital children’s wards found that youngsters do not like clowns on the walls and even older ones think they are scary.
“We found that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable,” said Penny Curtis, senior researcher at the University of Sheffield which questioned 250 children aged between four and 16.
But their findings, published in a nursing magazine on Wednesday, has put the red noses of the clowning community out of joint.
In a deluge of emails to Reuters, they say they misrepresent just how popular they really are.
“The ‘universe’ of 250 children used for the Sheffield University study was miniscule compared to the 250,000 one-to-one bedside visits made by Clown Care to hospitalized children annually,” said Joel Dein, director of communications at the Big Apple Circus in New York. he Clown Care programme has involved two million hospital bedside visits since it began 21 years ago, employs more than 93 professional “Clown Doctors” and has been copied across the world in countries such as Italy and Brazil, Dein said.
Other individual clowns pointed out how much children, especially those who are ill, are cheered by them.
“I have clowned in hospitals, nursing homes, schools, day care, corporate events ,telethons and am a part of many charity events,” said Elaine “Daisy D.Dots” Vercellone, who has been clowning for 21 years around New York.
“It gives people, kids and adults a reason to be silly, to imagine and gives their minds a vacation if only for a moment.”
Heather Myers, aka Pip
“There are those who are afraid of clowns, this is unavoidable, the same way that there are those afraid of dogs and spiders,” she said.
“It is the responsibility of the clown to know his environment, and take the necessary steps when confronted with a phobia.”
There’s a shock – does anyone actually like clowns?
Personally, I’m with Bart Simpson – I once spent the night in a guest bedroom full of clown dolls, and it was impossible to get to sleep. I was convinced the horrid things were moving around every time I closed my eyes.
It’s one of the reasons this is my favorite t-shirt.
Mae video embedded below.
Power Outages, Flying Puppies & Mouth Wars
Like a lot of people in Ontario, we suffered through some crazy windstorms yesterday, resulting in a day of sporadic power outages. From about five in the morning on, our power was on and off throughout the day, causing me some major inconvenience, and not a small amount of worry over keeping my puppies warm. With Bunny’s kids in one room, Solo in another, and the balance of the dogs split between the dog room and our family room, there was a lot of space to be kept warm, and just one airtight wood stove to heat it.
Thankfully, Sean had the foresight to purchase a gasoline generator a few months ago, in anticipation of days just like this. Hooked up to space heaters, it was sufficient to keep the entire house warm, and the pups content, if not thrilled about the darker than usual rooms. I’ve never been more thankful that we heat our house primarily with wood than I was yesterday, although I’m thinking of investing in a few kerosene heaters as back up. After all, people in the Muskoka area are still without power, and might not get it back until Saturday. That’s a long time to run a generator, and a lot of gas used. We have a pond out back for utility grade water, but we just noticed yesterday that our pump is hard wired into the house, and so can’t be run off of the generator. We’re going to invest in a dozen or so really big bottles of drinking water. After all, Sean and I can use up the bottled drinks in the house, but the dogs aren’t as keen on Diet Dr. Pepper.
The entire situation was made more hectic because it was the day Harley and Izzy were due to depart for their new homes. Lauren, Harley’s new mom and adoptive mom of our Lola, was flying in from New York City, and Sean had agreed to meet her at the airport to save her driving the five hour round trip to our house. Lauren had agreed to carry both Izzy and Harley back on the return flight, dropping Izzy off to her new mom in New York City. Susanna would then fly her back home to Texas the next day. That’s a lot of planning, none of which could be bumped just because our power was out. I had to make a lot of frantic phone calling to make sure everything was still on track, complicated by the fact our cordless phones weren’t working with the power out, and my cell was completely drained. Thankfully, Sean bought a new cell just before Christmas. Lesson learned – buy an old fashioned plug in phone, in case of future power outages.
So, Izzy and Harley are gone, off to their new families. The house is awfully quiet, and poor Dexter seems a little bit bereft. You’d think he’d be grateful, since Izzy spent the last few weeks terrorizing him at every given opportunity. Sean has taken their leaving rather hard – after all, this is the first time he’s raised up pups, only to see them leave for new homes. He felt a special bond with Harley, who enjoyed sitting on Sean’s feet when he found the rowdy grown up dogs a bit too overwhelming. Poor Sean. He just learned that every litter breaks your heart just a tiny bit when they go.
Solo is coming along swimmingly, and has finally reached the stage where he seems like a ‘real’ puppy. That’s the stage where this tiny little bundle of fur suddenly develops a real personality, and sense of consciousness. You look at them, and they are looking back, not just gazing unfocusedly into the ether. Solo has a vocabulary of little puppy growls and barks, and did his first puppy mouth war with me. He’s breaking his baby teeth, and likes to chew on the nipple of his bottle. He looks more and more like a baby polar bear cub.
Unfortunately, Mae is pretty thoroughly bored with Solo. She’ll give him a cursory lick now and then, but other than that they’re rather like two polite roommates sharing an apartment. Solo stays on one side of the pool, and Mae on the other. This disinterest on her part has given Sailor a new hobby – licking the puppy. After I finish feeding him, I place him in front of Sailor on a blanket, and she spends the next twenty minutes acting like a canine car wash. She licks him up one side, then down the other, and repeats the process for good measure. Solo gives off little baby growls when he’s had enough, but usually he ends up falling asleep on his back mid lick session. Sailor has been a veteran puppy licker since she first climbed into her mom’s whelping box to tend to Tessa’s new litter, and she’s been at it ever since. This is a photo of her licking her half brothers and sisters, shortly before Tessa told her to shove off and get a new hobby.
Sean took some pictures of the pups before they left yesterday, and some photos of Dexter settling in with the brindle bunch today.
See them on Flickr, or below.
Solo is Feeling Better… and a new video
Well, Solo is feeling a bit better. Thanks to the advice I received from some list members, I spoke to my veterinarian, and we switched him over to Zithromax on Friday. It seems to have really worked – his check up Saturday morning confirmed his lungs are MUCH less congested, and much ‘drier’ sounding, although he does now have rhinitis (a nasal infection, similar to a cold).
Luckily, he’s still managed to gain a bit of weight throughout all of this, likely because I’ve been getting up every two hours to feed him, then staggering back to nap until the alarm goes off again. I think as of today I might try stretching that out to every four hours or so, since if I don’t get some REAL sleep soon I’m going to go utterly crazy.
This is the first time since Thursday or so I’ve been on the computer, so now I get to wade through nine hundred piles of email…
Bunny’s pups go home next week – Harley to New York City, and Izzy to Texas. I shot some new video this morning, and there’s a scene in there where Tessa is defending Mr. Monkey, everyone’s favorite stuffed animal, from the puppies. They wait until she’s asleep, then stage a “Mission Impossible” style theft of him that involves sloooowly climbing over the bottom shelf of the bookcase.
I’m going to miss the mayhem they cause, although I’m pretty sure Tessa is already packing their suitcases and pushing them towards the door.
You can see the video here –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23935blK1l8
Or it’s embedded after the cut.
Solo at Ten Days Old
At ten days, Mae’s solo puppy boy (who, for now, has pretty much just been christened ‘Solo’) seems to be doing wonderfully. He eats like a piglet, wiggles non stop, and is generally a content little guy.
I don’t like writing too much about him, since I’m afraid I’ll jinx him…
He weighs 15.4 ounces, and is as cute as a little plush stuffed animal.
Mae has an allergy on her nose, from the wool blanket I had in her crate for a few days. Every time I take away the puppy to bottle feed him – I’m still bottle feeding him four times a day – poor Mae tears about the whelping box and her crate, trying to find him. Now I feed him in her room, while she sits on the bed next to us, looking worried. She settles down eventually, and I bottle feed him with one hand, while I rub her tummy with the other. She’s been such a good girl.
Photos here, taken minutes ago:
http://www.flickr.com/photos
This one is my favorite:
Carol