pregnant Archives - French Bulldogs by Bullmarket

Veterinary Pet Insurance Announces First Winner in Monthly Contest Highlighting Bizarre Pet Accidents

BREA, Calif., Aug. 26 — Most people’s diets contain too much sugar. But for Sugar, the Jack Russell terrier, the problem was too much turtle. After meeting a wild turtle in the back yard, Sugar decided to have her new friend for dinner. Sugar’s method for disposing of the turtle’s shell — eating it — left her with a small piece of the shell lodged in her nasal cavity. After weeks of respiratory difficulty and inconclusive X-rays, veterinarians performed surgery and found the piece of shell, which Sugar’s owner, Ginger Reynolds, now has in a small glass tube.

“She started having trouble after eating the turtle, but we really didn’t think that part of the shell was stuck in her nose!” said Reynolds. “The veterinarians had never seen anything like it, and they did an amazing job given the unusual circumstances. Thanks to them Sugar is back to normal.”

Reynolds’ claim for Sugar’s surgery was one of more than 80,000 claims received in the month of July by Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI), the nation’s oldest and largest provider of pet health insurance. A veterinarian’s note included with the claim caught the attention of VPI’s claims department: “Sugar was caught red-pawed eating a turtle.” The claim was considered among other unusual medical claims submitted in July and, at the end of the month, VPI employees voted Sugar’s claim the most bizarre of the bunch.

Though undeniably unique, Sugar’s claim was not without competition. Honorable mentions included Louie, a one-year-old French bulldog who ingested more than 50 tea light candles; Ember, a six-year-old mixed breed dog who chased and caught her own tail, breaking it in several places; Bubba, a two-year-old Boston terrier who was shut into a recliner; and Oakley, a ten-month-old Labrador who ate a box of disposable razors. All of the pets with a claim considered for the distinction have fully recovered and received insurance reimbursement for eligible treatment costs.

50 tea lights? Even Bunny couldn’t eat 50 of them. 20 maybe, but not 50 – although she did eat a clock radio on the weekend.

And now, a statement from Ms. Penelope —

Penelope would like me to point that she is not, contrary to my previous post, cranky. In fact, she’s merely discomfited by the fact that something the size and shape of a cantaloupe is lodged underneath her rib cage.

Point taken, Ms. P, and my apologies.

Penelope says “You carry this around all day and see how rainbows and butterflies you’d be feeling”.

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).

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 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.