Advice on the Care and Training of Your New Human

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Since I am currently busy with work, I’ve asked Tessa to fill in and write a few guest blogs for me. She was busy working on her tan on the back deck, and suggested I re-print this column she wrote back in 2001. She then told me to get her some cookies and a glass of iced tea, which I happily did. Apparently, her training methods work.

Tessa at TenAdvice on the Care and Training of Your New Human
By Tessa, POTU

The following column is intended to give French Bulldogs advice on how to better train their humans to be loyal, obedient and semi-intelligent pets. Tessa does not condone biting or other cruel methods of training your pet human, but is actually pretty flexible about shock collars. If you are a French Bulldog and have a question on human training you’d like to see addressed here, you may email Tessa at TessaIsQueen@bullmarketfrogs.com Read more →

My Heart

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Tessa at TenHer eyes are a deep chocolate brown, with long dark lashes. Both are cloudy now, and the left has an opaque area that I’m beginning to worry might be a cataract. I haven’t taken her to the doctor yet, out of fear that he’ll tell me she needs surgery. I don’t want to put her through that, I’m not sure enough that it will help. Her deep chestnut hair is almost completely white, and looking at older photos make me ache. My partner says he prefers her like this, that she looks stately. I don’t want her to be stately – I want her to be young.

Her hips hurt her, too frequently now for my taste. I’ve had to carry her up the stairs a few times, and I worry when she walks on ice. I make sure she takes her supplements, glucosamine and shark cartilage and blue green algae. They probably don’t make any difference, but it’s something I can do to try to stave off the inevitable. It’s been years since she could jump on and off the bed without help, but last week she made it onto the couch – one simple jump, and she was up. I’m not sure who was more amazed, of the two of us. Read more →

Dog Day Afternoon in Phoenix

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There is apparently no limit to the amount of cruelty and stupidity which Phoenix, Arizona Sherrif Joe Arpaio is going to be allowed to get away with. In an unbelievable story from the Phoenix News, we learn that during a bungled weapons raid:

(A) SWAT team member drove a dog trying to flee the home back into the inferno, where it met an agonizing death.

Deputies then reportedly laughed as the dog’s owners came unglued as it perished in the blaze.

“I was crying hysterically,” Andrea Barker, one of the dog’s owners, tells me. “I was so upset. They [deputies] were laughing at me.” Read more →

Defining 'Puppy Mills'

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I’ve been thinking about the phrase ‘puppy mills’ for the last few days – what it means, really means, when we refer to someone as a ‘puppy mill’.

Some definitions are simple – places like the ones shown on Prisoners of Greed, for example, or the ones Kim Townsend exposes through No Puppy Mills. Sad, abused, neglected dogs, stacked in filthy crates or wire cages, and denied the very basic necessities of a humane life. No clean water, no veterinary care, no human interaction, no quality food. Breeding machines, used time and time again to produce a product that can be sold. This is what I think of when I hear ‘Puppy Mill’. I think it’s what we are meant to think of. Read more →

Waiting and Waiting… on mother nature

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SailorIt is an ironic fact that, no matter how high tech dog breeding may have become, it’s mother nature who still calls the shots. I’ve been hauling Sailor to the vet office for daily blood draws and smears and Draminskis, but it all comes down to timing – when she’s ready, she’s ready. And, like all things related to dog breeding, she’ll take her own sweet time getting there.

I shouldn’t be surprised, either. Sailor has always danced to the beat of her own drummer. She cycles when she wants, whelps when she’s good and ready, and makes veterinarians toss their hands up in despair when it comes to evaluating her progesterone results. She’s a rebel, yes she is. Read more →