(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.

Thursday Thirteen – 13 of my favorite French Bulldog photos

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I just finished scanning and re touching some old print photographs. I had forgotten how hard it can be to get details out of print images, even ones done at decent photo developing places. Working with digital images for so long has made me complacent about being able to turn little images into big ones, without losing details. Not so, with prints.

Uploading all of these old images sent me on one of those memory lane trips that only old photos seem to be able to inspire. It gave me an idea for this edition of Thursday Thirteen – 13 of my favorite old French Bulldog photographs, in no particular order. You can click on them to see them full sized.

Healing Pet Wounds with Sugar and Honey

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Honey for healing wounds

Sometimes it seems that the oldest remedies are still the best, and that’s definitely the case with the use of sugar and honey for the healing of wounds and ulcers. Honey has been recognized for its healing properties for millenia, with written works from Muslim healers promoting its use as a wound dressing.

In fact, a study in Bonn, Germany, has found that the use of medicinal honey wound dressings encouraged ‘debridement’ and more rapid healing:

A three-year-long study at the University of Bonn, Germany, reported good healing rates in the use of MEDIHONEYTM as a dressing for wounds in 15 children with cancer, a population prone to non-healing ulcers because of weakened immunity after radiation and chemotherapy. Preliminary results of another clinical trial comparing MEDIHONEYTM with hydrogel dressings in 100 patients with chronic leg ulcers were recently presented at the European Wound Management Association conference in Scotland. Those findings indicated that the group treated with honey experienced a higher rate of debridement and significantly faster healing than in the group treated with another advanced wound care gel.

Read the rest here.

Another study showed that honey’s healing rate on infected, post operative wounds outstripped that of even antibiotics:

A single study in infected postoperative wounds compared honey with antiseptics in addition to systemic antibiotics after culture and sensitivity. For all outcomes honey was significantly better, with much shorter times for healing, eradication of infection, use of antibiotics and hospital stay (supplementary material). The proportion of wounds healed without dehiscence or resuturing was 22/26 (85%) for honey compared with 12/24 (50%) with antiseptic

My grandmother always used honey on any minor burns or wounds, both on people and on her dogs. She’d cheerfully slather us up with honey, then seal it with a thick coating of granulated sugar. She swore that this is what the famous Mary Poppins song ‘Spoonful of Sugar’ was referring to – the usefulness of sugar and honey as healing agents. Of course, she also thought that wrapping our throats in mustard paste cured bronchitis, and that fairies lived in the bottom of the garden, but in the case of sugar and honey at least it seems she was quite right.

This article on the Dogs in Canada website by Dr. Jeff Grognet, DVM, details a regimen for treating pet wounds with honey and sugar:

When applied to a wound, sugar lowers the water content to a level that prevents bacterial growth. However, infection control is only a small part of the beneficial effect of sugar. It also draws nutrient-rich fluid into damaged tissue, promoting regeneration of cells at the surface of the wound. As well, sugar decreases edema (fluid buildup) generated by inflammation, reduces odours from wounds, and accelerates sloughing of devitalized tissue.

Ultimately, a bed of healthy tissue – granulation tissue – forms over wounds managed with sugar. For this reason, sugar therapy is an excellent choice for wounds with large areas of skin loss (like those created when a dog is dragged or rolled along the road after being hit by a car). Ulcers and burns can also benefit from sugar therapy.

Go here to read the rest, including application protocol.

So cute it's going to hurt

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OK, here it is – the world’s absolute and utter kyoooootest video.

Seriously, this is as cute as it gets. Just deal with, and move on with your lives as best you can, because everything after this is going to be a let down of earth shattering proportions.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Price Trial Aftermath – shutting down puppy import brokers

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To understand why I’ve been devoting so much time to the Gina Price trial, you need to first understand the ramifications of this case.

This is the very first time that a US puppy import broker or re seller has faced Federal charges and a federal trial. This has long reaching implications for every other currently operating broker who has victimized buyers, and put innocent puppies through hell.

Attorney John Hoffman has worked relentlessly towards the eradication of puppy re sellers. Here’s an email detailing what they’re planning next, and how you can help.

Please – if you know of anyone who has been the victim of a puppy import broker or re seller, ask them to get in touch with John. Witness who are willing to testify are the only ammunition available to fight these scumbags.

Email for re distribution from Charlotte Creeley, co founder of the Wrong Puppy –

Gina Price of Rebel Ridge Kennels is currently on trial in federal court in Tennessee for abuses in connection with the sale of imported puppies and there is a very good chance of having investigations of other importers started if we can gather enough buyer complaints to show a pattern of fraud.

The federal prosecution of Price and the fact that Brenda Moncrieff (BulldogRavine, APlusBulldogs, and HeavenlyFrenchBulldogs) has voluntarily surrendered her kennel license to the Pennsylania authorities and taken down her websites shows us that responsible breeders and owners and purchasers of French Bulldogs CAN make a difference. Price and Moncrieff were two of the most prolific and abusive of the puppy import brokers.

The Wrong Puppy (www.thewrongpuppy.org) is asking for your help.  We need to gather as many complaints as possible about the purchase of import puppies from each and every abusive puppy import broker still hanging out their shingle. Warren James, one of the puppy buyers from Gina Price, set up a website called RebelRidgeKennelsIsBad.com (no longer in existence), which he used to collect complaints from puppy buyers. He had more than 30 complaints when the FBI investigation against Price started and more than 200 by the time the decision to prosecute was made.

We need to gather information and documents that we can use to justify prosecution of more of the bad guys. The information we need is:

1.   What the buyers were promised, and

2.   What the buyers received.

Documentation should include:

1.   Purchase agreement and health guarantee;

2.   Registration papers;

3.   All emails and correspondence between the buyer and the seller or anyone working for the seller;

4.   Vet records, including diagnoses and invoices

Please contact Attorney John Hoffman at canada@dslextreme.com if you have available documentation, or simply mail the documentation directly to his office at John E. Hoffman, Esq., 4035 Robin Hill Road, Flintridge, California  91011-3811.

Be sure to include any envelopes in which things were mailed, and records of any wire or Internet transfers of money in connection with the purchase of their puppy, because it is necessary to show use of the mails or wire facilities (including Internet and Western Union transfers) to show fraud by mail and fraud by wire, each of which carry sentences of up to 10 years in prison.

We especially need your help if you are a former employee who has information and/or copies of records. Please contact us! The Government can promise employees lower sentences or immunity in exchange for cooperation. Former employees (and current employees) can help break the cases wide open since they have far more information as to what was really happening than do the buyers

Cases involving puppies who died or who had serious medical problems are the most important, but we also want cases in which the promised registration papers were not provided and in which a promised health certificate was not furnished.

PLEASE, CROSSPOST FAR AND WIDE, GET THE WORD OUT TO EVERY BULLETIN BOARD, EVERY BLOG, EVERY EMAIL LIST, EVERY FRENCH BULLDOG OR BULLDOG MEETUP, EVERY FRENCH BULLDOG OR BULLDOG CLUB.  WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Charlotte Creeley, Esq.
cccpups@aol.com
cccreeley@comcast.net
http://www.cccpups.com