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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!

A Plethora of Preggos & Chicken Banana Pudding Soup

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I’m sorry, I know alliteration is the red headed step child of blog titles, but I couldn’t resist — It’s finally become apparent that Penelope wasn’t just being moody and picky and even more Princess-y than usual. She’s actually pregnant.

Which means — yay! Two sets of stinky bum, puppy breath, sock chewing little darlings to terrorize the old timers.

The downside, of course, is that if Paris is actually pregnant, too, I could be in for some fun times. Fun as in ‘no sleep, no eat, never leave the house again, clean up more dirty newspapers than should be humanly possible without losing your mind’ fun.

So far, though, she doesn’t look pregnant. She’s not getting all milky moo cow looking, she’s not gaining any weight (more than she usually carries on chunky physique, that is), and her baboon butt has disappeared. None of that bodes well for puppies, although to be quite honest it does bode well for my chances of ever getting any sleep after Labour Day weekend rolls around.

Both Tula and Penelope went off their food slightly, but Tula got her appetite back in about 48 hours. Of course, 48 hours is practically a hunger strike for Tula, but it was still worrisome. Penelope, who usually sucks down food like a vacuum cleaner on steroids, has been more stubborn about it. My usual raw mix wasn’t cutting it, and neither was lean chicken breast, ground beef and rice, or anything else we tried. Just as I was starting to get worried, I remembered we had a leftover box of Honest Kitchen ‘Embark’ in the freezer. I figured it was worth a try, and mixed her up a bowl.

Now, if you’ve never fed it before, Honest Kitchen has a sort of steep learning curve. It’s raw, but it’s been dehydrated, so initially it looks like a box of upscale chicken soup mix (if soup mix commonly had grass clippings and banana chips mixed into it).

Banana chip on top - and the yellow lumps are chicken
Dry Embark – Banana Chip on top. The yellow lumps are chicken

You mix it with water, and it turns into a sort of slurry. Leave it sit for a while to re hydrate, and eventually it looks like.. well, like grass clipping, banana chip, chicken pudding soup.

Mmmm…

Re Hydrated raw dog food
Re hydrated Embark – yummy!

But here’s the thing – after a week of refusing to eat more than two bites of food at a time, Penelope took one sniff of the bowl of green pudding, and sucked it back like it was the most awesome thing she’d ever tasted. She hasn’t let up since. Oh, and it gives them tiny little non smelly poops, which is an added bonus.

I’d always liked it in the past for weaning puppies, but now — big convert over here. Penelope gives Honest Kitchen two big, pregnant thumbs up.

Speaking of which, here’s a photo taken this morning of her chunkiness. Sorry for the bad stack, but it was starting to drizzle, and a grape can only hold a dog’s attention for so long.

Pregnant Penelope at four weeks and change

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.

Penelope is puzzling

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I am inspired by the fact that my dogs set the bar ever higher when it comes to puzzling “What the hell is THAT all about?” type scenarios.

Penelope was bred 2.5 weeks ago. For the last few days, we’ve been seeing the occasional teeny tiny, pinkie nail sized clots just fall out of her vagina.

It happened to Sean first, and as he said himself “I think I’m taking it pretty well, all things considered”. Not every man can refrain from shrieking with horror when a piece of blood clot falls out of his dog’s vajayjay and lands on his shirt, so big thumbs up there, fella!

Literally, they just fall out – you’re holding her on your lap, and ploop! A tiny solid piece of whatthehellever falls on your lap. In between ploops, she’s got no discharge of any kind.

The clots are solidly formed, with no bad smell. She’s not sick. She has no fever. She’s not lethargic. Or off her food. Or drinking too much/too little. All of those are the signs of pyometria, which was my first worrisome concern. After a check over by the vet, we’re both pretty sure that pyo is what she doesn’t have – it’s what she does have that’s still puzzling us.

The vet, on being told about the little bits of stuff that were falling out of Nell, said “What the hell could THAT be?”. Gee doc, if I knew that, I wouldn’t be here! Just kidding, I love my vet. And hey, it’s sort of stimulating to be the case that causes her to say, with some excitement, “This, this is really quite fascinating, to be honest with you”.

Cell cytology revealed.. nothing. No pus, no infection, no plethora of white cells.

Google searched it – nothing.

The veterinarian did a  Vet Med search on it – nothing, other than a repro vet suggestion to ultrasound her uterus, to which I said “And what does THAT tell us?”, to which the vet said “Nothing”.

So… what the hell? Anyone ever seen this? If you have, what was it? And did your girl still conceive?

I’m going to go bang my head on the desk for a while now..

(Almost) All the ladies love McLovin

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Squeamish readers take note: This post contains descriptive terms you might not enjoy reading. Feel free to skip by looking at this cute video of a kitten.

Tessa the French Bulldog is done with lovin'

McLovin is slowly losing his mind, and I can’t say I blame him. Poor Elliott – it’s not easy being the only mature boy in a house full of French Bulldog ladies in the mood for love.

The progesterone fest, however, is slowly winding down. Only Paris still remains committed to her one true love (or at least her one true ‘you’ll do for now’), with Penelope and Tula having come to the conclusion that he isn’t, in fact, all that and a bag of chips.

It was a different story last week however, when Penelope spent most of her time either pining for her beloved, or screeching at the top of her lungs whenever she caught sight of him. Elliott was busily peeing every place he caught scent of her, which apparently included the leather recliner and my suede Converse running shoes.

Tula’s infatuation wore off mighty quick. Within 24 hours, she went from “Ooooh baby” to “Ewwww, icky”, a sea change she expressed with her fine white teeth and an impressive show of snarling. Elliott, being a typical, easy going male French Bulldog, shrugged off her change of heart with some befuddled confusion and a great deal of sangfroid.

Penelope, on the other hand, objected mightily to Ms. Tula dissing her beloved, and a quick and fierce battle over whether or not Elliott was, indeed, the most handsome Frenchie alive was only broken up when I intervened with a bucket of water and a hose. Rumors that the other dogs were hanging around in the background chanting “Jerry, Jerry” and that Sailor, Penelope’s mom, stepped in and swung a chair at Tula’s head are unsubstantiated.

The fight was declared a draw, with Tula walking away muttering “I still say he stinks“, while Nell, gazing at Elliott with moony love struck eyes, hummed “one day, my frog prince will come”.

Less than a week later, and oh how things have changed. Nell and Tula are now united in their disdain for Elliott’s manly ways, and have expressed that opinion with several “Get the hell away from me or I’ll neuter you with my teeth” conversations. Elliott has decided that he’ll just stick with Paris for now.

What a surprise he’s in for when Paris falls out of love with him. That girl will eat him alive if he comes sniffing around too insistently…

Tessa, being old and experienced in the ways of amour, has said that love and romance are dearly over rated, and pale in comparison to a nice nap in a sunny spot in the garden.