Tania's Blog

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star ......

2012-01-24T13:04:00.001Z

Goodbye Twinkle - safe journey

You may have well seen the recent activity on our face book page, or seen the links on the home page to the official statement, but last weeks events taught me one thing, it doesn't matter how many years you do this job, some things are harder to get through then others. To be fair, I had the easy job, I didn't have to meet Twinkle, hug her, kiss her, and make the dreaded decision, but the events took over so many hearts and lives that on Friday night we held a nationwide vigile to Twinkle, the little puppy who's being was so painful there really was only one option. I've copied below the full statement by Vicky (our chairman) who had the harrowing task of letting her go, a job that should have bestowed itself to the breeder, who instead of doing the right thing, sold her - even suggesting she could be bred from. Thank fully Twinkle found her way to somewhere we got to know about her, and between hundreds of broken hearts on our Facebook page really did know what he felt like to be loved.
So why was I affected so badly, you'd think after almost 11 years I'd be hardened to this, to be fair there are some situations where I have found I can detached myself from easier than I could 11 years ago, but for some reason this one was different and I really sunk quite low come Friday night as my energy was just drained from the mass outpouring of greif that came across the group which quickly turned to anger. Gardening is my escape, working with the seasons and with nature to create something that I hope will be here long after I'm gone and being the weekend I took the opportunity to hide away and do just that, sadly as many people who work in any kind of rescue will know, it didn't go quite according to plan with the arrival of an adorable Welsh couple late Sunday afternoon who reminded me that it's not all about me - it's about the many other bulldogs out there who need our help, sadly, sometimes it's harder to just carry on to the next case than others but I think I'm there, life goes on as they say

The new Pond

Faries

Statement 19th January 2012

How it all began....
A simple question posted on the Bulldog rescue Facebook page ‘ any one heard of BARALASIS????’
This was picked up from this advertisement on the www.

DUE TO HAVING A SLIGHT PROBLEM WITH HER BOTTOM. ITS CALLED BARALASIS WITCH IS PINS AND NEEDLES IN THE BUM AREA WITCH IS MAKING HER INCONTINENT THE VETS HAVE SAID SHE WILL GROW UP TO LIVE A NORMAL LIFE WILL JUST TAKE TIME SHE WILL BE ABLE TO HAVE PUPS WHEN SHE IS OLDER. she is a happy little thing and loves playing and it dont bother her in anyway, plz ring 4 more info UPDATE She is getting better day by day and she only gets incontinent after food or when she is very excited

None of us in Rescue nor the vet we consulted had ever heard of this made up condition ! neither had google !
This has led to an amazing chain of events, it sparked interest in what was happening and the Bulldog Rescue and Rehoming Group Face book page members started following what was going on .
It transpired that the puppy was sold for £800 to a young lady who signed a paper saying she knew the puppy had health issues but accepted and had had it explained to her and was buying her at the agreed price.
Next day ,less than 24hours after the puppy had been in the new home the person who bought her realised she had taken on much more than she could cope with because the puppy was continuously passing faeces ,and was quite weak on her back legs .She asked for her money back and to return the puppy. The breeder refused saying she had signed to say she knew the pup had problems and would not accept the puppy back or return the money.
It was at this point watching this posting Rescue began to worry, never mind the ethics of the breeder all we could think about was someone had an incontinent puppy that they no longer wanted but needed to recoup their money .
Our face book questioner began to pursue the problem finding out the breeder and then the purchaser, so we still had the problem an unwanted puppy going to be passed on …. A breeder who totally refused to take responsibility for a puppy whom, in that condition should not have been sold.!
Bulldog Rescue take very seriously the role of being rescuers, fortunately the number of true rescues of ill treatment and actual cruelty is quite small, but we have had experience in the past of this type of health problem and we know from bitter experience that the puppy who is very cute looking grows into a full sized bulldog who because of the stench is quickly relegated to the outside.
If it is lucky it gets a warm kennel, if it is not it gets left in the garden shed and lies in a bed full of poop and pee and burns its skin so badly it becomes infected and sore.
This is not a maybe it’s a fact, we have had quite a few dogs in this condition.
One beautiful male aged 2 had been given to a young family in Nottinghamshire about 2 years ago; they loved him and thought they could cope. When we were called in to look at him to see if he could be rehomed through the rescue, because the neighbours had called in environmental health. we were quite unprepared, first of all the smell, the instant the door was opened. We were then shown the dog through the window, they were reluctant to go out in the yard because the dog leaked poop all the time. The yard had been cleaned but all around the walls at bulldog bottom height was splattered faeces .
He was a very sweet boy but could not come indoors and no one went out to play with him. They were desperately hoping to save him but knew in their hearts that no one would cope with this level of care .As he showed weakness in his rear legs they didn’t know if he was hurting .He was seen by a vet diagnosed with hemivertebrae and was PTS.
We were therefore very aware of how this puppy may end up if we didn’t step in. The Rescue Facebook members suggested if through negotiations we could get the new owner to sell her to us, we could raise the money by donation.
Our intrepid Facebook member worked hard on setting up the purchase whilst Tania set up Pay pal to handle the donations and we put out an appeal.
Rescue has a set figure of £100 with which we can purchase dogs with ,but we still needed to raise £700.
Overnight this money came in, in large amounts, in small amounts, people gave what they could and gave it willingly to purchase this puppy and save it from being passed around.
We made it quite clear that there was no guarantee that the puppy would be able to be homed but that it was needed to be got out of the circulation of sellable dogs! Urgently, whatever this puppies outcome when she has been vet examined we know and the Facebook page members know ,that no one will ill-treat, or misunderstand that puppy again.
She belongs to Rescue now and will be looked after ,have medical care and be assessed for life expectancy and quality of life ,as her back end is weak we are also aware she may be in pain .
Yes, the Breeder sold her and kept the money, refused to take her back totally wrong!!! but we couldn’t wait for litigation, the puppy had to be got out of that situation .
The new owner was naïve thinking she had got a bargain puppy but quickly realised her mistake and a reputable breeder [who would never have sold such a poorly puppy in the first place ]should have taken her back and refunded the money .
Fact remains the dog needed getting before it was sold on, the wonderful members of the Facebook group provided the means to buy, pay for her X-ray, to get her into Rescue and at the end of the day that is what Rescue is all about .
The Puppy… is safe from that scenario she’s cuddled up in the determined ladies house right now , she’s got to be assessed by an experienced vet and her future will be decided .Whatever that is the group of people who worked together on this cannot be thanked enough.
Bulldog Rescue will give a further update as to the puppy’s condition when we know ourselves the extent of her problems.
Thank you all very much for caring and helping this dog out of a crisis .
Vicky Collins-Nattrass
Chairman Trustee on Behalf of Bulldog Rescue and Rehoming Charitable Trust

New year, New start, same old same old

2012-01-06T16:19:00.001Z

Earlier this week the Daily Mail published an article regarding the number of stray dogs and one person's opinions regarding how difficult it was to adopt one. It made me realise that after 10 years my mindset is in "rescue" mode and that no doubt there were many many people out there sharing her opinion so I thought I'd go through some of her gripes and explain them:

First mistake. I called the dogs home to register our interest and was told their policy was never to re-home puppies into families with children younger than eight years old because — and I quote: ‘We can’t guarantee the puppy won’t, at some point in the future, bite one of your children

This is a policy we try very hard not to adopt, but I know that many many rescue centres do. We cannot guarantee that any dog won't bite you or your children in the future but there are many many dogs that need children, especially if they have come out of families with children. It's true that in cases where the history is unknown or we know the dog simply isn't used to small children we won't take the risk either, but there's certainly no blanket ban here. The way I see it is that we won't take any necessary risks but won't rule you out completely if you have kids. Having said that if you talk me into to letting you take a dog listed that can only be placed with kids over 10 and you have a 3 year old that gets bitten you'd soon be on to me screaming and wanting to know why I let that happen!

Hurdle number two was that every member of the family had to visit Albus at the centre 70 miles away. Not just once. Or twice. But several times for ‘bonding’ purposes before they would release the puppy to us.

I'd be interested to hear what they would have done if they hadn't insisted the dog meets everyone and then after getting the dog home realised the dog didn't like one of them? Better to be safe than sorry in my opinion

Hurdle number three was The Home Visit. By then, I was starting to feel more than a little irritated. We had already expended a huge amount of time, money and energy in meeting their re-homing requirements. Sending a warden to assess our home seemed to be an excessive measure.

Sorry, but any responsible person needs to be sure the new family and their environment is suitable, I must admit being "irritated" by a home check sounds a little bizarre to say the least and is definitely not excessive in my opinion

Let’s not forget we are talking about a dog — not a child. We were clearly a nice, middle-class family trying to do the right thing by giving not one, but two, strays a loving future with our family.

I find this statement infuriating - nice middle class families are just as likely to be unsuitable as a nice working class family. I'm sure there must be a word for people who assume that because they are middle class they are an automatic good home?

But their stance through the entire process was one of distrust and annoying superiority

My guess is that this rescue place, as with almost every other rescue place, have been taken in by people who are not who they say they are enough times to make sure that ALL new potential families are checked out. If the dog went into a family who kept him tied up outside in the rain because the rescue didn't take the time to make sure they weren't so middle class they weren't prepared to let the dog in the house the headlines wouldn't have been far far worse!

The warden arrived for the inspection bringing another dog with her and asked if it could come inside the house. I suspected immediately this was a test of how dog-loving we are.
I made all the appropriate cooing noises despite the fact it was quite a smelly dog who proceeded to relieve itself all over our hallway rug.
By then, I would have done anything

I'm surprised the home checker didn't see through the charade to be honest and it'll be interesting to see how long this placement lasts.

Don’t get me wrong. I am as much of a dog lover as the next person. But there were many times during our re-homing adventure that I couldn’t help feeling the pooch police had lost the plot.

You have clearly never been conned by anyone pretending they want the dog for purposes other than that of a pet

Oh, and of course we still needed to pay £120 per dog for the privilege of this grilling we’d been subjected to.

How else can the rescue centre cover their costs? Have you any idea how much the day to day running costs?

If for any reason we are unable to continue to look after the dogs, we are not allowed to give them away to family or friends — they have to go back to the rescue centre.

Yes and .......? If the original owners had put the same stringent requirements into the sale of the dogs in the first place they would never have been strays. The ability to abandon a dog and have no come back is the exact reason why so many rescues adopt this clause - including us!
Oh, and Juno and Albus are micro-chipped back to the dogs’ home, so if they do ever find a gap in a fence and decide to run off, the dogs’ home will always know.

We also do this and twice now the people we rehomed the dog to have claimed to have found the dogs as strays and handed them in to dog wardens (incidentally both times the dogs had been rehomed to members of the police force but that's a whole new story). When I take responsibility to ensure that every single dog we rehome has a safe future I will do whatever it takes to ensure just that, including keeping the chip numbers registered to us, something that the people we are rehoming for are incredibly grateful for
The article sums up with So there you have it. Barking mad or sensible measures? I’ll let you decide or, perhaps, we should let sleeping dogs lie

From the point of view of someone who has been lied to, had dogs abandoned because they couldn't be bothered to make the same journey to take the dog back and have turned up for a homecheck to find out that the 2 bed house with the nice secure garden was a 5th floor flat with a balcony I would say very sensible measures indeed - but what do you think?

Read article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2081502/Stray-dogs-There-345-day-hard-dog-loving-home.html

Tis the season to be .....

2011-12-21T11:26:00.002Z

...... Plain bloody stupid if you are behind the latest RSPCA campaign

The Pedigree dog, without which no dog would exist, but once again we see the RSPCA spending thousands of pounds on newspaper adverts and petition campaigns - I bet when you put your lose change in the collecting tin the other day you thought your money was going to make sure that all the animals in the shelters would get a nice Christmas - you'd be mistaken to think that any of that money actually goes to the animals because most shelters are financially independant of the RSPCA and operate almost like a franchise. Money donated goes towards paying salaries (fair enough if it's going to the inspectors), keeping the head office at Horsham running and financing campaigns such as this.

Quote: The way that dogs are bred today, in order to win shows, is having a huge impact on their health and welfare. This is why we’ve launched our Born to Suffer campaign which calls for pedigree dogs to be bred primarily for health, welfare and temperament rather than the way they look.

Outdated propaganda, almost every single bulldog breeder I know will put health and temperament above everything else. Of course I can't speak for other breeds but certainly the health and temperament of the bulldogs that end up in rescue have certainly improved in the last 10 years

Quote: But it’s not just show dogs that may be suffering. Not all pedigree dogs will appear in shows, but many are bred by breeders who want to produce show-winning animals, and who sell their surplus dogs as pets.

Sorry, but purchasing from a show breeder is the best way of ensuring your puppy is bred properly and with care by someone who actually gives a s**t and isn't in it purely for the money. The argument is simple - OK, you may not want to show your bulldog, but you still want a nice healthy bulldog that actually looks like a bulldog and a breeder that aims to show what they breed will not only have some understanding of the breed standard but will also be making that extra effort to produce good quality, healthy dogs.

Quote: To win shows, dogs must meet a 'breed standard' which is set for each individual breed and describes the way a dog should look. Breeding for looks in this way can lead to dogs being bred with exaggerated physical features. According to scientific studies some of the UK’s favourite breeds of dogs have been bred to such extremes that they can no longer breathe or walk normally. For example, dogs with short, flat faces often have narrow nostrils and abnormally developed windpipes. They can often suffer severe breathing difficulties and may have difficulty enjoying a walk or playing. Dogs with folded or wrinkled skin are prone to itchy and painful skin complaints, and dogs with bulging or sunken eyes are prone to injury, pain or discomfort.

Yes they can but there would be more if there was absolutely no control over what or who was being bred. In today's world if you make dog breeding easier by removing the only controls there are then you are playing right into the hands of the people that breed for the sole reason of making money without a care for the welfare of their dogs or their offspring.

I'm sure this is going to rumble round like thunder caught in a valley, but over the last couple of years the Kennel Club have alienated alot of breed clubs and breed councils by going through a large number of breed standards with a fine tooth combe and changing the wording of things simply to appease the media. The RSPCA probably only ever see the badly bred pedigree dogs because most pedigree dog owners who need help will go to their breed rescues and to people that understand and care about the breed, it's only really those that need to offload quickly, who never really cared about the welfare of their dog or simply abandon their pet will find their way into RSPCA shelters and in light of that they really don't have the experience or the knowledge to understand the dog stood in front of them.

Of course this all started with "that" programme and as filming of the second installment is well underway I have offered an interview which according to the programme maker has been accepted because the BBC have insisted that there is a balanced argument regarding the issues it raises. I'm not convinced it will happen as I too have strong opinions that may not be welcome but we will see.

OMG - Another one of "those" moments

2011-12-01T12:27:00.000Z

Blue eyes in bulldogs is a fault - not an excuse to add pounds to the price

With the likes of Jemima Harrison on the war path again with her Pedigree Dog's Exposed campaign, I saw a message this morning that really did make me go OMG. Read through this advert....

VERY RARE BLUE EYED STUNNING MALE BULLDOG PUPPY FROM A LITTER OF 5, The Odds Of A Blue Eyed British Bulldog Are A Zillion To One ( Look It Up On Google ) These Dogs Are £10,000 Plus In The USA Not In UK ( Very Unique ) He Has A Redish Brown Body With White Head & Black Around His Right Eye With A Perfect Tail. He Has An Amazing Pedigree And Is Very Strong & Chunky, He's A Healthy Puppy With A Great Temperament Being An Excellent Example Of The Breed. The Bloodline Is Truly Outstanding, THE SIRE HAS NO LESS THAN 12 CHAMPIONS IN HIS 5 GEN PEDIGREE ALONE, Bullies Such As CHAMPION CALIBRA KRYPTONITE, CHAMPION CALIBRA GOLDEN JUBILEE, CHAMPION ROWENDALE RUM TRUFFLE, WORLD CHAMPION ‘MYSTYLE GOLDEN WONDER & Many More. CHAMPION ‘MERRIVEEN MAKE MY DAY’. The Dam Also Has Top Bloodlines Being Grand Daughter To MULTI INTERNATIONAL CHAMPION OCOBO FREDDY MYSTYLE, SHE ALSO HAS MANY CHAMPIONS IN HER 5 GEN PEDIGREE ALSO INCLUDING A FEW WORLD CLASS CHAMPIONS, To Many To Name. He Was Born On The 16th September And Is Ready To Go ON The 10th November. He Will Come With KC Pedigree Papers , 5 gen Pedigree Tree, 4 Weeks Free Insurance, Puppy Pack, 1st Injection, Micro Chipped, Health Checked, And Wormed To Date. He Is Only Available To A Good Loving Home. He Is £3000. Viewing Welcome. Viewing Is Also Available Via Youtube As You Can Have A Better Look This Way. NO TIME WASTERS PLEASE.

The chances are that some poor sod has already fallen for this and it angers me that whilst the likes of Ms Harrison are hell bent on attacking those that at least try and do it properly, adverts such as this are popping up all over the place from people who really don't have a bloody clue. I feel sorry for the breeders who's dogs have been listed in this advert, although to be honest reading through some of those dogs I can probably guess where the blue eye has come from.
A blue eye is simply lack of pigmentation in the eye, it can indicate deafness but rarely does, it mainly appears on white dogs, although it's also common in fawn dogs where the white colour gene has diluted what would have been a red coated dog. I've seen it on Brindle dogs too but it is certainly not a rare condition that requires a £10,000 price tag, it's a fault and a fault that should not be bred from due to the deafness risk.
If Ms Harrison gets her way all breeding in the future will be as indiscriminate as this and then all of our pedigree breeds will be "at risk". Pups with blue eyes should be sold with restrictions for a lesser amount to pet homes. They should not be an opportunity for someone to scam you out of thousands of pounds more!

God Bless America

2011-11-24T14:50:00.000Z

As the Bulldog Nationals finds itself well underway and the fact that our Chairman Vicky is once again enjoying her week in the States reminds me that it's been 13 years since my one and only trip to the American Nationals. 1998 - Reggie the first wasn't even a year old and I was the only UK Bulldogger on the internet, in those days the only choices you had for chat groups were American ones and I had joined the Bulldog-FX group where in time I was invited to go out there. I remember sitting on the plane and the chap next to me asking me where I was going to stay "with a lady I met on the internet" was the reply - can you imagine saying that these days LOL. It was an absolute fabulous week and I really hope that I get the chance to go again some day as I made some wonderful friends over there. But as the week progresses, the New York Times has jumped on the breed bashing bandwagon with their article "Can the Bulldog be Saved", a quick look on Miss Puddleducks blog shows she's relishing the fact that her anti bulldog lobby has crossed the pond, it will be interesting to see where this one ends up as I can't see the yanks rolling over and playing dead quite so easily as us Brits did.

The End

2011-11-05T13:55:00.001Z

Before we begin this blog, you may want to remind yourself how it all began back in March
http://bulldogrescueuk.blogspot.com/2011/03/are-you-sitting-comfortably.html
http://bulldogrescueuk.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-i-did-at-weekend-by-edward-aged-2.html
http://bulldogrescueuk.blogspot.com/2011/04/time-ticks-by.html
Saturday 5th November 2011 - the day none of us thought would happen, and the day all of us have been working towards. Edward has gone to his new home. We've been looking back over his time here this morning and apart from the fact that the 19.1kg dog that arrived left here weighing in at 26.1kg is probably the one thing that makes us all want to punch the air and shout - we did it!!!!
Last night, I shut Edwards kennel door for the very last time, this morning I let him out knowing he would never be shut in a kennel ever again, he, of course, had absolutely no idea how the morning was going to unfold

As usual he was demanding to be let out this morning so he could go through his usual routine of deciding which toy to play with today

Next stop the Bathroom

Don't forget my feet

Look who came to say goodbye - my fairy godmother Kate - where would Edward be without this wonderful lady

Goodbye Annie - I lubs you

Goodbye Edward

So many dogs have left here but I don't think any of them have left the mark that Ed left, today is the first day of the rest of his life and boy what a great life that is going to be. We've all just been stood around with a "what shall we do now" expression remembering the highs and the lows of the cheesy wotsit who arrived as a bag of bones, the worries that he wasn't putting on the weight, the fear that his fur would never grow back, the princess that demanded to be let out before the chickens of a morning. The idiot that stuck his face in the nest of flying ants and gave us all the shock of our lives as his face swelled up before our eyes, the charmer that would never let you forget to do his feet and the sweet gentle dog that had come out of goodness knows what and is on his way up to leafy Surrey, where his arm chair awaits - that's after he's cocked his leg up it of course. Have a great life Ed, you've left a paw print on all of us and we look forward to hearing of your antics with your fantastic new mummy who will do an absolutely amazing job of completing the long long journey that has been your recovery - you are one special bulldog and don't you ever forget it.

Edward March 2011

Edward November 2011

Maybe people aren't so bad

2011-11-04T11:25:00.000Z

I've always joked that I'd much rather be surrounded by dogs than people, but yesterday we witnessed the fact that people actually aren't so bad.
The story began on Wednesday when I was approached by a lady who's 5 month old Bulldog Rex had been seized by Animal Health for being illegally imported. She'd bought him from an advert on Pets4Homes and had no idea that what she had purchased was illegal until the vet that checked him over noticed the blood tests were missing in his pet passport. What followed was horrendous for all involved when she arrived home to find her dog being seized as being imported illegally and moved to a quarantine kennel in London, made worse by the fact that he would have to stay there until January 2012 and if the family couldn't pay the £1000 bill he'd be put to sleep. I spoke to the kennels (who wish to remain anonymous) directly and they confirmed the story as true and so the campaign began to raise the money to pay the bill and get Rex off of death row.
The following day I spoke the Animal Health Officer in charge of Rex's case, she confirmed that this happens on a regular basis and that there's been at least 20 cases in London alone this year - and that's just the ones that got caught! But she also confirmed that if we could raise the money he would definitely be released to his family in January and seemed quite pleased that we had got involved to help the family in question - it was at that point she let on that as part of a documentary for the Discovery channel she was being followed around by a TV crew, and that the crew had filmed Rex's removal and that they wanted to follow up the story by filming his reunion in January with his family and report the fact that thanks to Bulldog Rescue, 100s of complete strangers had put their hands in their pockets and raised the full amount in just 24 hours! Yes, we did it, the bill is paid and Rex goes home after Christmas and the happy occasion will be filmed and hopefully aired next year.
But there's a more serious side to this tale, if 20 people have been caught, how many go undetected? You know I'm not a fan of ePupz, Pets4Homes and the pet sections of GumTree, Loot etc etc and we're pretty good now at spotting the scams that insist that they are people of God and it's not their fault that the litter of cute bulldog pups are stuck in Scotland when they've had to rush to Nigeria. I asked the AHO yesterday what would be the one piece of advice to give to a prospective buyer and she confirmed "See the pups with their mum" but is that enough? I know of people that cross reference the advert with the Kennel Club lists, all litters that are registered via the KC can be traced, follow your gut - if something doesn't feel right then don't do it, make sure you buy from a KC registered breeder, preferably an "Assured" breeder and if the dog has been imported ask questions - lots of questions and make sure you sign for the dog because there may come a time when you need to prove it wasn't you that smuggled him into the country.
I'll keep you posted on Rex's progress, but what a lovely way to end a very long week

What do you know about Canine Meningitis?

2011-11-02T12:23:00.002Z

Until yesterday I didn't know much about canine meningitis, but one of the dogs at the kennel was put to sleep last night after displaying the symptoms and rapidly went down hill in the space of just 24 hours! Dear sweet little man was only 6 and was picked up from his previous home where he was living in the garden, thank goodness he wasn't still there because his only real cause for concern yesterday morning was that he refused to get out of bed and his temperature had gone through the roof. None of us really thought it was terribly urgent, he wasn't vomiting and he was happy to see us, he just didn't want to get up, but we called the vet and later that afternoon he was taken to his appointment. We'd been battling an ear infection so we'd assumed the infection had spread and a course of anti biotics was all we'd need, but when I went to get him, despite being excited at the prospect of going for a walk he couldn't stand up, the look that just said "hang on a minute, my legs don't work" was probably when I realised this was actually a little more urgent, I carried him to the van and the nurse helped me carry him in on the stretcher, but when we put him down we realised that he'd pee'd himself and his fur was falling out in absolute handfuls. Realising this was actually more serious I offered to stay with him whilst the vets finished up their other appointments, I cleaned him up the best I could but he really couldn't move, he still wagged his little tail at me though and seemed fine in himself. A while later we're in the xray room, xrays on his chest and abdomen both normal, bloods - reasonably normal, a slightly elevated white blood count was nothing unusual as we knew there was an ear infection, urine syringed up from the stretcher was off the scale but he was starting to become aggressive - very very unlike him. His temperature was still very high (over 40 degrees - normal temp is 38) but efforts to insert a drip failed as his veins were just shutting down as soon as the needle went in. With a temp that high you'd expect a high blood pressure and very prominent veins.

Now he couldn't walk at all, his legs just crumpled underneath him and he was now in obvious pain, we were watching him deteriorate before our eyes but had no idea what was wrong with him. Bless him, he was so brave but 2 hours later he was becoming agitated and quite aggressive and it became clear that the most likely cause was in fact meningitis. Without being able to get the drip in there was very little we could do to help him so "the meeting" was held - 2 vets, myself and a nurse all agreed if we couldn't make him comfortable his condition would continue to worsen and so at 8 o'clock last night he was peacefully laid to rest.

So what is meningitis? PetWave.com describes it as: "a non specific disease" that refers to the pathological condition of inflammation of the tissues surrounding and protecting the brain and spinal cord. The causative agent can be anything that triggers an inflammatory process in a particular dog, including bacteria, virus, fungus, chemical toxins and/or other agents. Meningitis is a very serious condition, and if a dog exhibits signs associated with this disorder it should be taken to a veterinarian immediately.

And lists the symptoms as
High fever (elevated body temperature)
Muscle stiffness
Musclee spasms in the back (often painful)
Rigidity of the muscles of the neck and forelimbs (often painful)
Extreme sensitivity to touch (hyperesthesia); may jump or yelp when touched
Loss of appetite (anorexia; inappetence)
Lethargy
Nausea
Vomiting
Stiff, awkward stilted gait
Inability to bend legs
Head tilt
High fever
Depression
Vision impairment/ blindness
Progressive paralysis
Seizures
Confusion/disorientation
Agitation
Loss of coordination (ataxia)
Aggression

With the exception of Vomiting he went through pretty much every single one of these symptoms in a 12 hour period. The article goes on to say

Meningitis can be fatal. Advanced cases of meningitis can cause extreme depression, blindness, progressive paralysis, seizures, confusion, agitation and/or aggression. Severe cases can also cause ataxia, which basically means lack of muscular coordination. Affected dogs may be unable to coordinate their movements. They might move in uncontrollable circles, stand up then stumble when trying to walk, or stand and walk with their front legs spread abnormally far apart. The clinical signs of meningitis can mimic those of other disorders. In order to successfully diagnose meningitis in dogs, a series of tests and examinations will need to be performed by a skilled and perceptive veterinarian.

Dogs at Increased Risk include dogs of any age, breed or gender can be equally affected. Newborn puppies are especially at risk. Affected animals are almost always systemically ill. They develop a high fever, a stiff awkward gait, painful back spasms, rigidity of the neck and forelimbs and extreme sensitivity to touch. They become lethargic, anorexic and nauseous. Advanced meningitis causes extreme depression, blindness, progressive paralysis, seizures, confusion, agitation, ataxia and/or aggression. It can be life-threatening

We talk alot about the condition in children but no one really talks about it in dogs and until yesterday had no idea what to look out for. I hope that if just one person can learn from this tragic and untimely death it won't have been in vain - run free sweet man, you were a big teddy bear who didn't deserve to leave that way, but thank goodness you were where someone spotted you didn't feel well and you weren't still out in that garden with no one to notice until it was too late.

The bulldog really is a wonderful thing

2011-10-31T11:57:00.000Z

Which is of course why we've all got one (or two or three or .....) but they are mischievous and resourceful little blighters too! I went to shut the chickens in last night and as usual shut the mesh door, slid the door across to the nest box and opened the little peep door to check all were where they should be only to find as I shone the torch in that the chickens had turned into a bulldog!!! Our 10 year old Mabel had some how climbed the ramp, squeezed through the sliding door and had settled down for the night in the next box. We spent the next frantic half hour soaking wet trying to find three very bewildered, sleepy,wet hens who had scattered around the edges of the garden finding the most dense and bramble filled bushes they could find. It's quite funny now but you should have seen my face when I saw a bulldog face looking back at me instead of three chicks perched and settled down for the night! Thankfully they all seem non the worse for wear and Hansel gave me her second egg this morning so hopefully she's not too phased by the experience.
If I hadn't had been so frantic I would have got a photo and she didn't seem to understand why I was so cross with her either. Thankfully it was dark and the hens were all sleepy enough to be handled OK.
The new web site is now totally up and running and all the missing pages are up to date, I'd really like to know what you think of the new lay out? Is it easier to navigate? More complicated? Let me know

Is your head a plastic nodding dog ...

2011-10-18T12:42:00.000+01:00

... you'll only get that if you've heard of the band The Prime Movers, but The Royal Veterinary College are conducting a survey on Head Nodding in Bulldogs. Bulldog Rescue are very excited that some real research is finally going to be done on this very misunderstood condition and have offered to help in any way we can. Please help them gather some accurate data by completing the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/headbobbinginbulldog

HEAD NODDING:

Head nodding is not deliberate but the dog is conscious and aware that it is happening, the best way to describe this is just like a nodding dog in car rear window. This is not epilepsy and I cannot stress this enough as too many bulldogs are diagnosed epileptic when it's nothing more than head nodding. No one really knows what causes it and it is very breed specific, but it is pretty widely accepted that it is stress, excitement or pain induced and could be linked to blood sugar levels. My personal theory is that due to the high pain threshold the bulldog has, it's an outward sign that something is not quite right, although it is also very common in dogs that have played hard and then gone to sleep to wake up head nodding. I've also found that once a dog has had a head nodding episode many of them will be prone to them in the future so anything slightly stressful, exciting or painful can trigger one. This crops up a lot in dogs that have recently been rehomed, the combination of new surroundings and the increased level of attention is the most probable cause.

Try to find a link between the nodding and a problem, some of the more common triggers include:

growing pains / hormonal changes
aching joints
general pain
moving families or moving house
change in routine
teething
overdoing it

It is also common in pregnant bulldogs or in new mums and giving something sweet, ie: dextrose, glucose, icing sugar, honey etc is enough to halt the episode although often distraction will also. It can also occur in young males that are having their testosterone surge at around 9-10 months and may not occur again throughout his lifetime. You will find that most dogs which have episodes of head nodding will be more prone to them as they get older, especially if the dog suffers from arthritis or some other on going problem, for these dogs keep some glucose sweets handy, although we had an old girl who I swear could fake a head nod just for the sweet she got to stop it.

Page 65/66 The Bulldog Bible by Tania Holmes

Puddleducks

2011-10-01T15:27:00.009+01:00

I've kept very quiet of late regarding the rantings of Ms Harrison, but she's off again on her recent blog and I think it's about time someone stood up to her total drivel

She starts this particular entry with a photo of a Bulldog along side the photo of what looks like a boxer/stafford cross - For pity's sake - if I wanted a Boxer/Stafford cross I'd buy a blooming Boxer/stafford cross, in reality I want a bulldog and I still find it absolutely amazing that apart from the fact that the photo used is so totally unflattering it could be any bulldog in the world, these people still insist that the bulldog has changed so much that he's now on deaths door.

There's two things I'd like to point out here

Firstly: Take a look at the following two photos

If I told you there was over 100 years between these images would you still think the breed had changed beyond recognition as Ms Harrison would have us believe?

And secondly as the temperature outside today hits over 25 degrees (yes I know it's the 1st October but someone forgot to tell the weather) I have a kennel full of bulldogs who far from being shut away in a darkened air conditions room are all out sunning themselves and making the most of this unprecedented heat wave without a care between them. No they haven't been walked today, but no dog should be walked in this for the same reason you won't find me trecking for miles in extreme temperatures. The dogs we have here right now are at no more risk of overheating than any other dog of any other breed.

However, this whole cross breed malarkey has got to stop, our Face Book page was recently hijacked buy a bunch of cross breeders and apart from the fact that the people are not very nice I'm still very much a firm believer in the fact that the only reason why most of these people cross their bulldogs is simply for money - face it, put a bulldog male to a stafford bitch and you've got something you can sell as "a healthy alternative" to the unsuspecting public who truly believe they're getting a bulldog, with a far less chance of having to spend out on a c-section AND no kennel club rules which will limit how often the bitch can be bred from. Two years down the line we're getting the calls from really upset people who own what they thought was a bulldog that is now trying to bite them at every opportunity it gets. The bulldog was a nasty character and I for one don't really want to be on the receiving end of a so called "Olde Tyme" because some money grabbing thug wanted to make a quick buck and has absolutely no intention of standing by his creations. How many times has a new cross breed popped up? None of which have ever, or will ever go the distance and still be around as a breed in 150 years time!

Bringing in the mad ravings of a certain Ms Milne (who I see has gone all double barrelled on us), I will give give Ms Harrison credit for sticking up for the dog show - take away the only thing between indiscriminate breeding and the breed standard and my job will become a living hell, trying to work out what's a bulldog and what's verging on a Pit Bull. It seems to me that when someone's views are so strong and so misguided that they can't see anyone elses opinion as an option they certainly should not be put in charge of a TV show - maybe you'd like to interview me? Or visit the rescue kennel? I'm not ashamed to say that there is probably no other place in the country that sees such a wide variety of this breed, we probably see every single problem that could possibly be thrown at them and yet almost every single dog here enjoys a long daily walk through the woods and the majority of vet treatment is spent putting right the neglect of the human that owned it before we got it. I'm not denying there's problems, but breed anything to anything and there's going to be a risk of problems - that's the law of genetics. Maybe you should also actually speak to someone on the breed council too - there seems to be a lot of speculation being banded about as to what the breed council are actually doing - but as someone that attends almost every breed council meeting and supplies statistics to their health committee it is very frustrating when the good work is being ignored because it makes more sense to pretend that no one cares.

So lets concluded in the same way as Ms Harrison:

Quote "by suggesting that the answer to the KC bulldog was an outcross to a less conformationally-extreme breed. But of course this has already been done by those ahead of the game, eg: the Leavitt Bulldog (above). So how about the KC de-registering the Bulldog and embracing this healthier phenotype instead?
Yeah, I thought not... " Unquote
a) I don't want a Stafford look-a-like, the UK is over-run with unwanted staffords b) Why not acknowledge the good work being done by the Breed Council and stop quoting outdated propaganda that no longer applies to most bulldogs and c) As the wife of someone in a wheelchair, we got a bulldog to suit our life style oh and d) stop encouraging unscrupulous breeding by people with no care or control over their actions - can you do that? Yeah, I thought not ......

Ha Ha - that'll teach me

2011-09-27T17:05:00.008+01:00

Start talking about putting the heat lamps on and we have a mini heatwave! It's the end of September and the temperature is rising by the day. No doubt they'll be banging on about global warming before long - but face it what was the disappearance of the ice age if it wasn't Global Warming??? A change in temperature is nothing new is it - never satisfied - that just about sums us British up in a nut shell.
The new web site has been in operation for over a week now, I think the majority of glitches are now ironed out and I can start adding the missing pages, I'd really like to know what you think of the new format so please feel free to leave a comment below. I appreciate that not everyone is happy with each area having their own waiting list, but I would like to hear your thoughts on the overall site.
The Bulldog Breed Council Health Committee are running two polls right now that they'd like your help with, one is for breeders and the occurrence of water pups and the other is for pet owners, if you feel you can help out please click on one (or both) of the links below

PET OWNERS SURVEY

WATER PUPPY SURVEY

The spot light is never far from this breed so the more facts we can gather to throw back at the breed bashers the better in my opinion.

That's the Summer Done

2011-09-24T15:36:00.002+01:00

The Autumn Equinox has passed and the nights will now start to draw in. Despite the brilliant sunshine that's shining outside today I know it's only a matter of time before Christmas is upon us and the chaos it brings with it, especially here at the kennel. I love Autumn, the colours and the cold wind on your face make it even more snug indoors on the sofa with the bulldogs, soon the heating will be switched on and the sure sign that Winter is here is switched on with it. Here's hoping that not too many bulldogs spend the Winter tied up outside in the snow and that we can find as many of them as possible before the ice sets in again.
This Summer has been quite an enjoyable one, we've had some lovely dogs through the kennel and the rescue service has coped pretty well the demand we find ourselves in when the kids go back to school at the end of the long holiday, although it is sad when suddenly there's an influx of dogs who's only crime is that the kids are not around to walk him any more. The Picnic has been and gone with a record breaking £4,000 raised which taking into account our vet bill appears to have doubled will be very welcome indeed. Thank you to everyone that came along again this year, I know I say it every year but I think this one was the biggest and bestest yet!
You'll notice if you are a regular to our web site that's it's gone "all posh" as one of our face book buddies put it, every area now has it's own waiting list, this is much easier for us and to be honest much fairer on the many many people that are waiting to adopt a bulldog, but it's causing a bit of confusion as it's slightly more difficult to apply for a dog and impossible if the dog isn't in your area. I'm afraid that due to much abuse of the old system we've been left with very little choice but to transfer it to a "sign in" system and if I have to give one simple bit of advice here its "write your password down!!" I don't have access to it so if you forget it you'll have to change it on line, I'm afraid I can't tell you what it is. Apart from a few teething problems trying work out how it all works it's seems to be running quite smoothly, but remember if you applied on our old system we do need to get your contact info into the new one so just drop me an email and I'll let you know how to get transferred, it'll take only a few minutes and once you've done it you'll be able to apply again for any of the dogs in your area that you like the look of.
Regulars to our face book page may have witness the furore that kicked off recently when we were infiltrated by some of the "alternative" bulldog crowd. I think if nothing else they managed to show themselves for what they really are and it was a shame that some of our members felt they had to leave because of the pure vileness that some of them were spouting. All is fixed now, we have increased the number of administrators to 3 as they knew how to block me so I couldn't remove them from the members list. I'm pretty sure they're all gone and a change to the settings means they can't get back on as easily as they did before, which is a shame because I never wanted that group to be tightly policed as it was meant to be a friendly place that anyone could join, but sadly, once again, a few idiots have meant we've had to tighten the security which is a shame for those who genuinely want to join and now have to wait approval from an admin before they can join in the conversation.
So having just seen Geeza off to his new home (yes I know - how did we manage that!? - look out Oxford is all I can add to that) I'm going for a well deserved cuppa and a bit of a sit down.

ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

2011-09-07T11:26:00.009+01:00

I was just looking at the last blog entry - yes I know it was way back in July - and it's sad but we lost Gretal (the white chicken in the video) to one of the local Buzzards, in the early hours of a Thursday morning, poor Gretal was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and although I suppose I don't really blame the buzzard, I am trying to understand that it's nature and her babies have to eat, I'm not ashamed to say there's a small part of me that wishes it was someone else's chicken. Needless to say poor Hansel was beside herself but doesn't seem to agree that Gretal 2 looks exactly the same, there's also a third bird who Katie has called Cruella

So much has happened, Annie and her boyfriend Matt (or should I say fiance, bearing in mind he proposed to her on day 4) did her 4 day walk across the Downs for Bulldog Rescue and raised over £700!!! And of course the annual Bulldog Picnic which took place on Saturday, raising a staggering (and record breaking) £4,000

Edward made a guest appearance and boy what a difference a few months make, we are now on the road to a new home and we are all hoping (except Annie) that he will be leaving the kennel very soon as he was an absolute super star and surprisingly increadibly famous!

What a manic few weeks the picnic is though, the week before I can't do any of the routine rescue work, so all the rehoming, new listings, applications and banking goes by the wayside whilst I spend the week making sure everything is where it should be and all the lose ends are tied up. Then of course the week after is all the catching up and tail chasing that's inevitable when the day to day stuff is a week behind. The hardest part of the day itself is all the lugging about, but once it's all set up it's pretty much handed over to everyone else to run and enjoy and at this point I really do just sit back and enjoy the show, it is such an amazing event that just gets bigger and bigger every year, and it astounds me the number of really healthy pet bulldogs that cope brilliantly with the crowds, the weather and the shear number of other bulldogs. Ever year we have a local vet on call and qualified canine first aiders on site - we have never needed the vet, I can only recall three dogs in 14 picnics that needs cooling or treating for stress, such a shame the likes of Jemima Puddleduck couldn't be there to give her something positive to write about the breed for a change. In fact the unhealthy one is me! As a CFS sufferer it really knocks me for six and today (Wednesday) the entire picnic has really hit me like a brick! CFS is one of those things that is still debated amongst the medical profession as to if it's real, for those that suffer this, ME or PVFS as it is sometimes called, will tell you it is very real and there are many out there that suffer much worse that I do. I'm not convinced that Rescue isn't the reason I've got it in the first place, as although I do recall suffering bouts of extreme exhaustion from as far back as my college days, the relentless effort required to run the charity as well as the business, home and family caused what I guess was "burn out", but I won't give in to it and have learnt the art of "pacing" over the years and the art of ignoring telephones or having a laydown and refusing to talk to anyone if I reach the point where it's necessary. It doesn't always go down very well, especially with the person who really needs to talk to me to see if her on line application she did this morning has come through OK, but hey ho!

So as we begin to get life back on track in the week the kids starts to go back to school, we begin preparations for the deluge of Bulldogs that will soon be requiring their new homes .... so keep an eye on the web site, if you have been unlucky so far with your applications then keep trying - sooner or later the right dog will be there and it will become apparent why you weren't successful on the ones you applied for so far when that perfect little squishy face lands on your doorstep.

DRUM ROLL REQUIRED?

2011-07-15T15:02:00.005+01:00

I really don't know where the time goes and all my good intentions regarding keeping the blog up to date seem to last a while and then fizzles out. The complaints still make me smile:

"look love, I appreciate that you are very busy but PLEASE sort your blog out, I am getting withdrawl symptoms and i'm sure i'm not the only one lol! xx "

Is quite typical of the messages I get when I let things falls so far behind. And so much has happened since the last update too, I had a birthday (not telling you my age but it's alot more than you probably think) and Dizzy got me some wonderful Bantams which I've called Hansel and Gretal - well I say Bantams, Hansel looks like she might actually be a chicken but they are both so tame and sing such a lovely song all the time. They have free roam of the garden - Stan thinks they are fantastic, Hilda however is work in progress shall we say

Of course the high light of the past few months was the visit to Buckingham Palace. We were nominated by the delightful Brian Cobbold in recognition of our 10 years running Bulldog Rescue. Diz behaved like we were being sent to the tower, but did admit afterwards that he enjoyed his trip

I can't say too much about the day as beleive it or not the story has been sold to the London Bulldog Society for a donation to Bulldog Rescue so you'll have to wait and see the next edition of the "Broadsheet", but a day in a dress complete with hat and heels certainly made a change to my normal life. We met some very interesting people and I can certainly say that the Palace and it's grounds are just fabulous.

Here in rescue we are starting to gear up for the Annual Picnic, so keep an eye on the web site for further details. The date is 3rd September and we'll soon publish all the info you'll need in order to attend.

OMG .... !!!! That's more neighbours with us on their hit list

2011-05-23T11:37:00.008+01:00

Yep, yesterday was the second annual Bulldog Scooter Ride out - and if my neighbours didn't already loathe us - we gave them another 184 reason to see us as the "neighbours from hell" when the scooters decended on our little lane. We really were not expecting quite so many and the "parking" situation just decended into chaos. I am so sorry to all the residents, there had to be double the number of scooters than we had last year but we raised just under £475 in cash and two kennel loads of dog food, washing powder and nappy sacks. This year I got to lead the parade from Bognor to Midhurst in the van - oh boy that was stressful!!! Trying to keep at the right speed, waiting for stragglers to catch up, wondering where on earth the lead scooter that was meant to stop the traffice at the junctions had got to, but it was worth it in the end. I just want to give a huge massive thank you to Tina Hall who organises this and to every single scooterist that came to meet the bulldogs currently in Bulldog Rescue, they were all so tired afterwards, which was just perfect because so were we. Also a big thank you to the Royal Oak pub for allowing us all to decend on them afterwards and to Russell Hastings from the Jam who did a fantastic accoustic set. Despite the two downpours, everyone seemed to have a really great time.

POLL

2011-04-26T16:57:00.001+01:00

BULLDOG RESCUE ON LINE POLL - CLICK HERE
Is compulsory microchipping a good idea?

Ten years ago today ....

2011-04-21T10:10:00.005+01:00

... I rehomed my very first bulldog. Her name was Bella and we drove all the way to Great Yarmouth to pick her up from a lovely old lady who was moving into an old peoples home and needed to rehome her beautiful bulldog. No one had prepared me for the heart break that was taking someones well loved pet away from them, and I remember putting her in the back of our car and telling Dizzy to just drive. We had a tiny waiting list of no more that a handful of people and in our attempts to be organised we had set the journey up so we called in on her new home on the way back. Bella lived to a grand old age and eventually retired with the family we had placed her with to the Isle of Wight where she saw out her days.

Early April 2001, Olive Hunt rang to ask of we wanted to take over the running of Bulldog Rescue as they were moving to Tenerife. My initial answer was no and I joke that all I was meant to do was look after the phones for a fortnight whilst Fred and Olive went out to sort things out with their villa. During that two weeks I lost my Nancy (Shaloney English Rose) to a heart attack in a hydrotherapy pool, I remember sitting on the pool side talking to the lady about how I'd been asked to take on the rescue, she was heavily involved in a working dog rescue and warned me of the emotional stress it causes - nothing prepared me for what happened next though as I realised that Nancy was lower in her sling than normal, the rest is a blur of people rushing around trying to revive her and the bottom fell out of my world at that point. All our show dreams were in that dog, she was the sister of Shaloney Boy About Town who did well in the ring and a 22 month old bitch from our first litter having hydrotherapy for a shoulder injury after a stair gate fell on her when she was playing with the infamous Reggie Dawg.

In amongst all the grief and the realisation that my second litter wasn't going to happen quite as soon as I thought it would somehow I agreed to run Bulldog Rescue and life would never be the same again.

Looking back over the past 10 years there's been lots of highs and many lows. My children were young (only 11 and 12), we had three kennels which were my own, no paperwork, no waiting list and no access to the bank account, for those first few months we ran bulldog rescue out of our own pockets. I remember sat on the door step with my 11 year old son explaining what "quality of life" was after we'd had to put a dog to sleep. Nelly was found in a box in a garden in Liverpool by the new tenants of the house. No one knows how long she'd been there but her joints were seized, she was severely starved and was suffering internal bleeding - I'll never forget that moment for as long as I live.

Our first ever foster came in with dog number 6 - a beautiful brindle girl call Chips, she was Tom Sainsbury's first ever bulldog. The first heartbreak came with dog number 17 - Abbey who had moved on a home to home rehoming earlier in the day. Inexperience placed her with the wrong family who decided within only one hour they didn't want her after all. The trouble was she was in Bradford and I was in Sussex. The original owner wouldn't take her back so I managed to convince the new owner to meet me at Watford Gap services on the M1. At 9pm that night a car pulled into the car park and I knew something was wrong. I had my daughter with me who was only 12 at the time and in the back of the guys car was a dead dog, he claimed she simply stopped breathing. I cried all the way home with her on the back seat. She is the reason for the pebble memorial in the garden because it was my vet who gave me the proverbial slap around the face when I said I wanted to bury her in my garden - "she may be the first but she most definitely won't be the last" he said to me and so I reluctantly handed her body over for cremation and put the first pebble out along with her collar in her memory as I kissed her goodbye the tradition of the lipstick kiss began, the thought of her having no one that cared about her at the end was almost impossible to cope with.

My first ever Put to Sleep was a dog called Alfie in the August of 2001 (number 36) By now we had a handful of volunteers and a chap in Portsmouth was fostering him. Terry did a lot of car booting for us and had taken Alfie to a car boot where he proceeded to cause chaos which eventually ended with Alfie biting Terry quite badly on the arm. Thankfully I was only half an hour away and was able to get to the site quite quickly and get Alfie - that was an experience I hoped wouldn't be repeated too often - sadly I repeat that ending at least 5 times a year.

My first starvation case Emma (63) who belonged to a neighbour of an elderly couple of ladies in Kent, thanks to them we got her out just in time after several RSPCA visits had failed to help her. She went on to lead a very healthy and happy life in Seaford

Just looking down the list of dogs as I'm writing this is bringing back so many wonderful memories - Sherman (87) - the old chap who retired to live by the sea and who's children sent me a lovely picture they'd drawn of him on the sand with them. Ketchup (101) who was picked up by Vicky's partner at the time from a local boarding kennel where she'd been abandoned and saw a now familiar rendezvous at Watford Gap services. Pooch (122) who's owner thought it would be a good idea to withhold heart medication and not tell us she had a heart condition - 4 days later she collapsed - just as her new mummy was coming through the gate to see her. That all worked out fine though and the lady still adopted her.

By the following April I had overseen 114 rehomes. Little did I realise that there was at least another 9 years to go including Treacle (143) picked up by Jeanette and Trevor as a neglect case and who spent the rest of her life in a fantastic home - even playing the part of "Bullseye" in the school play. And Martha (161) who we bought from a junky in Birmingham for fifty quid. To feed a habit he took all the male "free to good homes" from the paper, mated them to Martha, forced her to free whelp (pulling the pups out with his hand if necessary) on the kitchen floor, selling on the male and the pups as quickly as possible. Her last litter had thankfully all died and I forget now how we got to hear about her but we did and she arrived here with mastitis and internal infections that should have killed her. She went on to live in a lovely village near Heathrow airport and every year at Christmas we'd get a fantastic card from her showing us just how well she was living now.

Cassie (169) who only had one eye who was here the same time as Butch (187) who had the oppose eye missing - shame we couldn't have taped their heads together and made a two headed dog LOL (joking obviously). Hatty and Dolly (214 and 215) or Hinge and Bracket as they became, the old ladies who's owners emigrated to Spain and who's memory will stay with us for a very long time.

Then there was Tessa, the first bulldog who I've ever heard scream in pain. Number 232 rehomed in May 2003 on a home to home and a prime example of how people lie about their dogs. Her ear infection was so severe she couldn't move without screaming and that night we went to see her and brought her back here in the middle of the night with a promise to her new mummy that I would make her better and bring her back. Thanks to my fantastic vet that's exactly what we did and the moment I walked back up that path with her was one of the most wonderful days of my life as their autistic son was so happy to see Tessa back from her "holiday". I can't think of many people that would have seen that rehome through to the end.

Max (291) put to sleep during surgery after a tumour was found in his bladder and here's a name you might recognised from April 2004 - number 332 was a dog called Molly and adopted by a certain Sue and Gav Phillips (the first of many)! Spud (382) who's serious bowel problem costs us a fortune in operations but who's new family loved so much they never once even though about giving up on him. In January 2005 was when we first met Peter and Beverly after they adopted Robbie (405) and Adrienne Llewellyn who adopted Phoebe (449). Helen Etherington with Bart (546) Glen and Amanda who came to adopt Dolly and took Colonel home with them at the same time (575 and 575) Adrian Ridley with Jade (643). The list is endless

But there's many dogs that have stayed with me, Douglas who died in his kennel following an epileptic seizure has been seen wandering the yard of a morning, and the many many bulldogs that have become personal pets including the infamous Winnie Pooh who's severe spinal issues led the vets to believe he wouldn't live any more than 6 months and who lived with us for 7 years. Buddy - the hydrocephalus pup who stayed with us for 3 months until he died, Billy and Bertie - the wonderful pups that arrived with severe demodex and who both sadly lost their battle, Maggie who after appearing on the Paul O'grady show in the Homeless dogs section ended up staying with me following a 6 hour operation that nearly took her. She died very peacefully in her sleep one Summer morning four years later in her favourite spot on the end of the sofa and of course now we have Reggie mark II, the pneumonia case who every time we discuss his rehoming decides to be really sick again.

So as we celebrate 10 years since that very first job, I'm filling out paperwork for adoption number 1200 - Cooper, the wee pup who arrived here with giardia and who's owner no longer wanted because the kids were scared of him. He was 11 weeks old!!! and following five days isolation went to be fostered by Dawn - who yesterday asked if she could keep him.

Here right now we've got Eddy, our £600 bargain currently being treated for demodex and starvation and Winnie Pooh's double - Spike with hemi vertebrae that no one has told him about, like Winnie he's convinced he's normal and the rest of the world are disabled.

So there we go, full circle and I'm sure I've missed loads of dogs out but I'd love to hear your stories on the dogs you have adopted from Bulldog Rescue - come on guys - fill in the gaps and give your bulldog a great big hug because they're not all so lucky.

Time ticks by

2011-04-04T11:38:00.003+01:00

I can't beleive that Edward has been here two weeks already, but the improvement in him is amazing. He's still very thin but no where near as pink and after his second dip yesterday it looks like we are winning with the demodex quicker than I hoped. Another skin scrape later this week will see how many more he has to go, but this dog has the most amazing personality and it brings a lump to my throat when I watch him running round the garden because he thinks THIS is great, he has no idea that things are going to get so much better for him. As we begin April, I celebrate my 10th anniversary with Bulldog Rescue. Things have changed so much since I first started back in 2001. Back then I had 3 kennel pens which could be empty for weeks at a time, now we've got 8 kennels, a kennel maid who comes in every day (love you Annie) and dogs waiting to come in, I've seen alot of changes over the years, breathing has certainly improved but eyes continue to be a problem. Skin problems pop up from time to time but as people learn the benefits of a good diet these too seem to be getting better. The bad press the Bulldog gets though continues to worsen and as we saw the number of bulldogs bred peak a couple of years back, the overflow of those breedings is why we are seeing such an increase. As I year end the accounts I'll soon be able to see just how many more bulldogs are coming through the system but as other rescue centers, that only a few years ago had never seen a bulldog, suddendly find themselves with them on a more regular basis I fear our figures are only the tip of the ice berg.

What I did at the Weekend, by Edward aged 2 and three quarters

2011-03-27T15:16:00.015+01:00

One minute I'm sat in a garden wondering what on earth I did to end up there and the next I'm in a car - and then another car - then a van picks me up and the next thing I know, I'm fast asleep under a nice warm red glow. My skin feels itchy but this cushion is so soft I can't help but have a lay in the next morning when all of a sudden I realise there's lots of other dogs around me and they are all barking furiously, I sense a door open and all the dogs become really excited but for some reason I'm not let out. I hear a voice say "don't pick that pooh up, I need to test it" - UH? Where the bloody hell have I landed. THEN this woman comes in to my room and starts scratching my arm with a sharp thingy - then she leaves? Next thing I know I'm back in that van, I don't mind telling you I was scared - surely I was going to get at least one more sleep under that nice sunshine thing that hangs from the ceiling? Another lady starts prodding my belly, looking in my ears and THEN she sticks a needle in my neck. Apparently it's an anti be-or-atic or some such thing but the other lady with the plats whispers in my ear that it's to make my skin better. So if I've had an anti be-or-atic to make my skin better why on earth am I stood here now having all my fur shaved off, can they not see that if I have to go back to that garden I need my fur to stay warm??

So after all that excitement what on earth else can happen? Visitors - that's what. Oh I have had so many lovely visitors including the very nice lady that first saw my advert on the interwebby thing AND she brought me presents!!!!

Today I had a bath, well I think it was a bath - it smelled blooming horrible and then I went for a nice walk through the woods - I did get some funny looks though - I don't think dogs are meant to be bald. I'm having such a lovely time, I hope I can stay here a bit longer, but I really really hope my fur grows back, I feel so naked!!!!

ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY?

2011-03-23T16:28:00.015Z

THURSDAY 24th MARCH

Today is the first day of the rest of Edward's life. And boy what a sweetheart he is. Thankfully he's tested negative for both parvo and giardia but sadly positive for demodex which to be honest didn't come as a suprise. He sat in his bed this morning whilst I scraped skin from his leg and licked my face the entire time. He's weighed in at just over 19kg and has the stinkiest, stickiest nose wrinkle I've seen in a long long time.
So, once armed with the test results it was off to the vet to get some anti biotics and some Aludex for the demodex
He thought the trip was far too tiring (despite the fact that he'd slept through the night without a peep) and decided to have a little rest

But once back home he was able to finally mix with the other residents which he enjoyed very much indeed.

We now need to start his treatment which will involve shaving his fur off so check back soon for some funny pics of a bald bulldog

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ORIGINAL POST
Then we'll begin.......

This is a blog you'll need to check back to often as it's the story of "The Stunning Buster". Maybe he was stunning once, but sadly not any more. The worst part is, he's for sale on the internet for a staggering £750.00
Yesterday the campaign began to get him out, one of the bulldog forums contacted me and asked if they could get him, could we take him. Within only 2 hours enough money had been raised to purchase him, by this morning we had almost £1000 in the kitty to cover his purchase (which was £600 in the end) and hopefully much of his treatment. Forgive me if I'm being cagy and if the owner read this - yes we gave you money because we didn't trust what you were going to do with him.

On collection the poor wee mite looked even worse and I'm currently waiting with baited breath to meet him and see if we can work out exactly what's going on with that skin, apparently he smells like a cheesy wotsit, bless him.

His long journey down from Bradford comes to an end in just a few hours so check back here tomorrow for an update.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's now just gone 8.30pm and Buster has finally arrived at the kennel, and what a mess he is. His name has now been changed to Edward - new start, new life, new name and he is completely unaware as to what a mess he is in.
A massive thank you goes to all the people that helped get him and transport him today, it's certainly been a very long day for him and he's now fast asleep under his heat lamp recovering from all the excitment. I'll examine him properly tomorrow and report back.

The good the bad and the ugly

2011-03-21T13:51:00.005Z

How many people, when purchasing a dog they've found on line, would even check the missing page - let alone compare every single inch of it's markings? Well Daniel and Lauren are the "good" to this tale because that's exactly what they did when they found Winston on Pets4Homes yesterday. They recognised him as a dog that had been stolen from Derbyshire back in September 2009. They agreed to go through with the purchase and along I went with £700 of my own money acting as Lauren's mother. Obviously the "bad" are those that had him, making out they'd bought him from someone who'd had him from a puppy they even said they could get us his "papers" if we wanted them. We've said yes but I doubt they will ever materialise. Oh and we were offered the chance to stud him to their pitbull if we wanted too and go halves on the pups!!! Today his nanny and aunt came to collect him as his Daddy is in the army and currently posted in Wales (does compassionate leave reach as far as getting your stolen dog back?) and despite my fear that he wouldn't recognised them he knew exactly who they were and jumped in the car as if to say come on lets go home. Winston is now on his way back to Derbyshire and a very happy little dog he is too. Oh and the "ugly" - that'll be me undercover with no make up on LOL

All the information has been passed on so it can be given to the Police and this nice happy ending is a very nice way to celebrate 10 years in rescue.

The Freak Show starts again

2011-03-10T10:51:00.004Z

Crufts starts today, sadly it's looking highly unlikely that I'm going to make it but if you are reading this before 4pm on Thursday 10th March I've decided to give my 2 complimentary tickets to whoever bids the highest donation to Bulldog Rescue - so if you want them, tell me how much you are prepared to donate via bulldogrescue@btinternet.com

With Crufts comes the usual rounds of Pedigree dog bashing, something that has really riled me is an email I received from the RSPCA this morning - please correct me if I'm wrong, but surely the job of the RSPCA is to help animals that are mistreated or need rehoming? Here's an extract from the email:

Dog shows like Crufts, which starts today, use breed standards to describe how a ‘perfect’ example of each breed of dog should look as the main judging criteria.

We believe these standards encourage the breeding of disabled dogs with exaggerated features. They also encourage breeding from closely related animals, which can result in puppies that have a higher chance of suffering from inherited diseases.

Is this really what they are on this planet for? Bearing in mind that this could open the flood gates for many more pedigree dogs to suddendly find themselves homeless, I bet they are still more than happy to keep any pedigree that makes its way into one of their shelters and sell it for several hundred quid rather than ask the breed rescue to help.

I'm sorry but I really don't think this is within the RSPCA's remit, there's several journalists out there that I'd expect nothing less from but the RSPCA? Surely their job is to rescue and rehome abused and abandoned dogs? Not to put themselves on a pedistall and start creating panic amongst pedigree dog owners.

What do you think?

On a lighter note, our Mabel is 10 years old today, it's a bitter sweet birthday for us as we tend to lose our bulldogs at 10, but fingers crossed the madam and her nappy continue for many more years to come.

Bulldog or Cross?

2011-03-07T16:01:00.002Z

Something that is becoming a real issue these days is the subject of cross bred bulldogs. We've known for a number of years that it goes on but in the last three or four months it's starting to become a real problem, to the point that where as before we were seeing maybe one in 25 dogs we were asked to rehome turn out to be a cross its probably now as many as 1 in 10. With the dog breeding laws as lax as they are its a problem I can only forsee becoming worse.
I think there are several reasons why it happens, apart from people jumping on the "bulldogs are unhealthy" bandwagon I think the main reason is simply money. Put a bulldog male to a staffy bitch and the result is a free whelped litter that look a little like a bulldog with no up front c-section or stud fee costs, a bitch that's much more likely to rear her own pups and a price tag of anything around the thousand pound mark. These dogs are now finding themselves homeless with owners who really think they have a bulldog. Ann Warwick at american bulldog rescue has helped us out with a few but she's also snowed under with problems far worse than ours and it is now starting to become a genuine issue and I'm not entirely sure what we, as breed enthusiasts can do about it. Some of these dogs are very difficult to tell and long gone are the days when all we had to go on was a leggy bulldog. A combination of long tail, button ears and lack of nose wrinkle is usually how we go about deciding but we can all think of at least one known purebred bulldog that has at least one of these features. Thankfully it is still fairly easy to spot a long bulldog tail against a full staffy tail but having said that we did have a dog with a very long tapered tail, who, if his kc papers were to be believed, was pure bulldog through and through.

For Dana ;o)

2011-03-02T15:11:00.004Z

For the first time since I took over Bulldog Rescue, I'm seeing people gift in several dogs on a regular basis, this was something that had only happened once before when a family gifted in their entire breeding stock before emigrating, but in the first 2 months of 2011 we've already seen three breeders decide they can no longer continue and ask us to find homes for their kennelled dogs. The increase in dogs will no doubt be reflected in the end of year figures which are due at the end of March but I can't help but feel that we've lost some very caring people in a breed that needs all the caring people it can find! As a direct result of this increase in dogs Annie is now in every day as opposed to three days, long gone are the days when I could run this rescue single handedly and if things continue to grow as fast as they are I'm not even sure I can continue to do what I'm already doing around a full time business and a choice may soon need to be made ....

In the meantime, I've spent this morning shaving all the fur off a poor little scabby girl. Although she looks twenty times better than she did when she arrived, she's now as bald as a coot. Thankfully she doesn't seem to mind and very much enjoyed her bath. It'll be a while before she's looking for a home but she seems to come out of herself more each day and she's is a real pleasure to have around the place.

Very quickly, I'd like to thank everyone that has supported Reggies Den's move into VPS products, I was very concerned that after all that training there's be no extra custom but I'm pleased to say that things are ticking over reasonably nicely and remember that if you are a member of Reggie's Newsletter there's currently a 5% discount running on all VPS products until the 5th, so be quick and join up at http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ReggiesDenNewsletter/?yguid=82641684

Thank you all again for supporting Bulldog Rescue at this very busy time and this blog is dedicated to Dana who very kindly rang and asked if I could update just for her .... so I did ;o)

Everyone must be on their guard ...

2011-02-19T12:19:00.002Z

In 2010 there were a total of 6 bulldogs taken - only 2 of which were returned. Already in 2011 there have been 8 bulldog reported as lost or stolen and 3 of these have turned up dead (2 drowned) as the breed continues to be popular I can only see this figure rising and despite the many many pleas to get puppies microchipped before they are sold, so many still are not - it's a small additional expense to help ensure stolen dogs are reunited with their owners and we can do it for you here at the kennel or at a show we are attending, if we are there in the van we will have equipment with us so please find me and ask me if your dog still isn't microchipped I will do it for a tenner!!
In the meantime follow some simple rules:
DON'T WALK SAME ROUTE, SAME TIME EVERY DAY
Anyone that is targeting a breed will watch for routine activity
MAKE SURE YOUR GARDEN IS SECURE
Several of the dogs taken so far this year have gone from secure gardens so make a point now of walking the perimeter fence and make sure there's no where an intruder can get in. Make sure all external gates are locked at all times and try and avoid having anything at the front of your property such as statues and window stickers that advertise the fact that there are bulldogs on the premises. It certainly won't hurt to fix up a CCTV camera, they can be purchased very cheaply and either rigged up to your TV or to the computer.
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY
In today's Internet culture it's very easy to forget that a face book status can easily advertise that you are not at home!!

So what have we been up to this week? A fantastic little puppy is just about to finish his 5 days isolation and move to a foster home, arriving with Giardia - a highly contagious dioreah causing stomach parasite he's not loved me very much for keeping him separate from everyone and everything and only touching him in gloves, aprons and shoe covers (which are pointless because by the time you come out you look like you've been attacked by a tiger). He's shown no symptoms all week and although the pooh test done this morning gave a positive result his new foster mum is happy to take the risk. Although easily treated it's a bugger to get rid of so lets hope that his 5 days quarantine will soon be a dim and distant memory and if we can prise him away from his foster mum he may go up for adoption soon (but don't hold your breath because something tells me he's already going to his permanent home) Little Cooper is only 11 weeks old and for all you breeders out there - refusing to take a pup back because it has Giardia is not, in my opinion, a good enough reason - thank fully he landed here!

Another little girl here at the moment is Betsy, also on long term antibiotic treatment for severe neglect, she's finally finding her personality and really coming out of her self. She'll look as good as new in no time I'm sure - watch for the web site as no doubt she'll be looking for her forever home very soon.

And of course the news arrived Thursday night that Dizzy and I have been invited to a Buckingham palace garden party in honour of the work we do for rescue - so do I hide the tattoos and buy a posh frock and a hat? Can you really see me in a posh frock and a hat? Although I did dream last night that one of the Corgi's poohed on the lawn and I whipped out a pooh bag from my hand bag and picked it up much to the disgust of the other guests.

Finally, I just want to draw your attention to the work of an organisation called PETA. Probably one of the most dangerous animal rights groups in the world. My background lies in animal rights but not even I ever went this far. Their annual attack on Crufts is comparing the KC to the BNP in that they promote "pure blood". There's a link through to the kennel club list of breed rescues so I guess we all need to batten down the hatches and wait for the car bombs? What do you think? Is this freedom of speech - sharing information that is already in the public domain - or down right dangerous? Please let me know: http://www.bnpcrufts.co.uk/page2.html

Blimey ... she's still alive!

2011-02-11T16:14:00.002Z

Well only just, almost 2 weeks into February and finally there's an update on the Blog! I do smile at the complaints as I really do find it really hard to beleive that anyone really does care about what I do in my little bubble.

So, where to start, there's been a lot happening over the last 2 months, including a very relaxing Christmas and an increadibly manic January. If you are regulars to the Homes Needed page you'll be more than aware of how many dogs we've had to deal with so far in 2011 and there's plenty more to follow over the next couple of weeks.

I've got several projects on the go including another course, this time in Behaviour and Phycology which is proving to be very interesting and we are at the very early stages of a Breed Rescue Coalition which is basically the coming together of different breed rescues in the hope that we can shout as loud as the RSPCA and the like when it comes to what happens to pure bred dogs that find their way into all breed shelters. We are planning a seminar in May so if you know anyone involved in rescue that would benefit from attending watch this blog for further updates.

As you may have seen if you are regulars to my face book page, Reggie's Den is now an approved premises and is licenced to sell Veterinary Medicine under the distribution category VPS, if you are not familiar with Reggie's Den please do take the time to take a peek at http://www.reggies-den.co.uk/ as not only are we the only Bulldog specialist supply outlet but we also donate 10% of every sale to Bulldog Rescue, we've recently relaunched our dog food delivery service too which was stopped a year or so ago due to the rising courier prices - we're managing some really good prices on dog food too so be sure to sign up, in doing so you're feeding the rescue dogs as well as your own - can't be bad ay!?

Our dear little foster pup Reggie is still with us, getting cheekier by the day and everytime we discuss his rehoming he has a quiet day - although beleive me he makes up for it the next day and still has to learn that taking the plant out of the pot and shaking the soil all around the living room is not something we encourage in this house, so I'll leave you with a pic of him looking very cute and inocent - just remember the camera ALWAYS lies

Lets Talk About the Weather

2010-12-03T11:34:00.004Z

That good old British tradition ....
I've had a few people enquire this morning if it's OK to let the bulldogs out in the snow. As a general rule, as long as you don't let them stay in it for too long they love playing in the snow. Having said that I know that some hate it and for those dogs I suggest you just don't even bother trying to get them out for a walk as it could lead to problems walking them once the snow has cleared - remember dogs learn by association, they may not put two and two together when the the cold wet stuff has disappeared and as there are many bulldogs out there that will use every excuse under the sun to get out of a walk, you don't want to be adding to their reasons LOL.
Obviously if your dogs are kennelled ensure you have heating because living in these sub zero temperatures can be detrimental to his health and well being but when it comes to just a good old fashioned run about in the snow for 20 minutes isn't going to do them any harm as long as they have somewhere warm to go to afterwards.
And if you don't feel like trudging through it then I'm sure your bulldog will forgive you a few days off as this doesn't look like it's going to melt any time soon which leaves me without a kennel maid today but as everything round here is frozen solid I'm sure it really isn't going to make much difference to the smooth running of things.
Have fun out there and stay safe

Touch wood ...

2010-12-02T15:23:00.015Z

.... I don't have a headache. I'm almost scared to say it as Tuesday AND Wednesday I had full blown migraines which were the last thing I needed and not only put me out of action but has put me a long way behind on my work. But so far today we're doing OK. The weather is amazing though and everything is under 3 foot of snow. Cleaning the kennels this morning was near on impossible - even the mop is hiding somewhere under all that snow, but the dogs didn't mind as they got to play in the snow for an hour - in fact if Cooper had his way he'd still be out in it now!!!!

Cooper is loving it loving it loving it

Baxter says: Who wants to play football ?

The three new arrivals wondering what on earth has happened

Teddy soon works out it's all good fun though

Revolving Doors

2010-11-29T12:08:00.002Z

Three dogs left for their new home on Saturday and Sunday saw three new arrivals, as I said, it's all just one big revolving door. It's very strange saying goodbye to a dog that's leaving for his new home, part of you is convinced that no one could possibly look after him properly but the other part of you is so happy to see him leave the kennel knowing he's destined for someones sofa. All three dogs that moved on Saturday all seem to be doing really really well and I'm sure that I'm already a dim and distant memory. The three that arrived however all speak Welsh and I'm sure they think that Annie and I are talking strange because we've had a few growls this morning, but it must be so overwhelming for them to suddenly find themselves in a kennel, although one gave me a bit of fright as all night he's not moved from his bed, every time I woke in the night I quickly checked the camera and he was in exactly the same place as the last time I checked - turns out the heat lamp is just too much of a temptation and bed is where he want to sit and do his sulking.
There were quite a few comings and goings over the weekend, another new arrival in Lancashire and the very sad case of the dog that moved from his foster home on Friday to sadly die shortly after arriving home. The highs and lows of rescue can really be stressful at times and Diz finally convinced me that I needed to see the doctor about the headache that I've had for the last 8 days. Apparently it's a tension headache and they won't do anything until I've had it for 3 weeks - goodness I hope I don't get it for that long, it's starting to get on my nerves now.

Reggie is feeling poorly

2010-11-22T22:51:00.002Z

Keep dear little Reggie in your thoughts for the next few days. We are now just over a week since his meds stopped and this morning he crashed. So sad to see such a live wire so still and quiet. A trip to the vet has sadly got him back on anti biotics but the vet did agree that it's not his lungs that are the problem but his throat which has been my thoughts all along. We know he only has a size 6 trachea, but thankfully he shows no signs of suffering a soft palate problem so there is a chance that he may improve has his head develops. Only time will tell - but lets hope there is light at the end of his tunnel. The vet trip got us into a very interesting conversation about corporate vets and at which point does a young vet enter veterinary college as an animal lover and leave as a business man? Something I didn't realise is the alleged fact that many receptionists and nurses working for corporate companies receive bonuses for getting clients to have certain treatments. It is incredibly worrying that you could be getting things done to your animals simply because the girl on reception needs to pay for her holiday. We have increasingly been aware that vets often refuse treatment because the owners cannot afford to pay for it, but by all accounts as long as they offer euthanasia as an alternative they are legally covered to refuse the treatment. This can't be right surely? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

And another roller coaster ride ....

2010-11-21T19:37:00.005Z

The week started OK but steadily went down hill following a falling out with a neighbour over a dog that was off lead (don't ask). We then had a dog brought in for rehoming who's owner announced as I was about to say hello to him in the back of the car "oh by the way you can't touch him"!!!!!! To be fair to the dog I think there were possibly some underlying pain issues going on due to a serious spinal defect, but faced with no option but to leave him here ... to say I spent the rest of the day with a headache is probably all you lot need to know. However all was redeemed today with a mini reunion of some of the guys Dizzy was in the Spinal unit with in 1984. Four of them got together, some of which hadn't seen each other in over 20 years

This motley crew contain Dizzy, Dave Howard, Tim Claire and Geoff Holt MBE. Dave's wife cooked us a fabulous meal and it was so nice to relax and catch up with everyone, we even got to feed the fish in the lake at the bottom of the garden, about 20 trout that were more than happy to pop their heads up for some dog biscuits - just amazing.

SHIVER ME TIMBERS

2010-11-11T11:53:00.002Z

What I want to know is, how come when it's Annie's shift in the kennel she gets glorious sunshine, when it's my shift it's blowing a bleeding gale and all I get is a row of big brown eyes looking at me with a look that say "if you think I'm coming out in this you can think again". In fact the wind is so strong this morning that it snapped the chain that holds the kennel door open!!! It's been such an awful week for them, what with the fireworks and now this gale force wind it's no wonder they are not all a bunch of quivering wrecks! Speaking of quivering wrecks, the new stray is finding her feet at last and enjoys a cuddle now instead of cowering away in the back of her run waiting for you to wallop her! However bad rescue can make you feel there is nothing quite like the feeling when a scared dog comes to you for reassurance for the first time.

It's a new dawn, It's a new day, It's a new week .....

2010-11-08T12:58:00.003Z

.... and the difference is ..... well not much to be honest, everything is quite normal for a Monday morning except the weather is blowing a gale and if Annie gets any of them out for a walk today she'll be working a miracle!!!!! We seemed to have coped OK with the fireworks over the weekend, the calming meds they were given made a couple of them sick, but I'd rather be cleaning up sick than trying a calm a dog that's climbing the walls. Another stray arrived Saturday morning too and with it has come the dreaded kennel cough so she's in isolation, at least for the time being anyway. Very very skinny and a chip number that traces back to Manchester - but no one prepared to accept she belonged to them. Poor baby has been Christened Skinny Minnie - we'll keep you posted.
In the meantime, here's a story that hit the Sun newspaper over the weekend - sickening to say the least: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3214542/Al-Qaeda-use-dogs-as-bombs.html

RIP SIR WINSTON OF POOHTOWN

2010-11-05T12:01:00.003Z

One year ago today I found Winnie Pooh had left us. He'd been with us for a few years after coming into rescue as a stray with serious spinal problems. He did well with us and we never did rehome him, choosing to live with the doubly incontinent grump box. Towards the end he became awfully senile but he was a big dog with a big personality and he's left a big hole in our lives.

I hope you are having fun at the bridge Winston!

So, today is November 5th - a dog owners worst date on the calendar. I am hoping that as this year it falls on a Friday all the fireworks will go off either tonight or tomorrow night. The kennel dogs are now being dosed up on Calming liquid in the hope they sleep through it. If any of you have a dog that really doesn't cope with fireworks it's worth giving them some form of calmer such as Rescue Remedy, Natural Calm or use the DAP diffuser or collar. A trick I was told many years ago which seems to work well is to put a t-shirt on your dog, the closeness of the garment makes them feel a little safer. The worst thing you can do is fuss, no matter how stressed your dog appears to be getting, don't fuel it by going over board with the comfort - it actually makes them realise that there's something to be scared of, so have the TV a notch louder, draw the curtains as soon as it gets dark and carry on about your evening as normal. Try not to walk your dog after dark over the next few nights as I know of many that have run of in a blind panic because a firework went off, it's better they are walked before dark or not at all tonight and tomorrow night rather than risk them bolting in fear. Above all, whatever you are doing, stay safe.

OMG!

2010-11-03T17:19:00.003Z

Oh My God! I passed my exams, not only did I pass but the one I was a bit unsure about I only went and got a bloody A !!!!!! That means I am now a C-SQP (http://www.amtra.org.uk/sqp.html) so the next stage is to get Reggie's Den registered as a retail premises and it should be all systems go come 2011 !!!!
I can't beleive I actually passed - Base Unit:B Companion Animal Unit:A Viva:Passed

Happy Monday

2010-11-01T10:23:00.005Z

I must be the only person on the world that looks forward to the clocks going back. My body clock is far more comfortable with GMT and it's nice to wake up in the morning and not feel like I need more sleep, yes I know it's dark early but that's what Bulldogs were invented for so you've got something warm and cosy to snuggle up on the sofa with!! Every year they start on about not doing this clock change, I hope they never get their way.

Another beauty arrived over the weekend, little Reggie has pneumonia and is now on a long course of treatment, at only 7 months old he is a real live wire and it's hard to accept how poorly he is. Once again the veterinary practice made it impossible for the owner to afford his treatment, and £2,000 down the line she's run out of money and can no longer keep her precious bulldog. I must say though the breeder has been amazing, offering them another pup and asking us to take the sick one. Be aware though, he's in the house as Hilda's new bestest friend so in a months time when his meds are finishing and we have to decide to if we are going to find him a new home I can see it being a very difficult decision!

Apologise for the disappearing blog entry, there was a problem with the video on it and for some reason it's disappeared.

That Friday Feeling

2010-10-22T11:57:00.003+01:00

A week that started out on such an awful low is ending a little better with the arrival of the sweetest little bulldog I've ever met called Daisy. Her daughter, Petal, came through a little while back via the RSPCA who since managing to get Petal have been working on the owners to get them to sign Daisy over also. She's finally here and boy was she worth the wait. I can't tell you how much love this little girl has to offer but for now she's going into a foster home so we can work on building up her weight and her confidence before throwing her out into the big wide world which right now is the most scariest place ever as far as she's concerned. Those big brown eyes are going to melt someone's heart that much I do know, but she won't be listed for a week or two so keep an eye on the rehoming page for further details.
One thing this week has taught me is that you really do never know what tomorrow will bring, I know there are a number of people out there who don't agree with everything we do and I appreciate that, but on days like today I wouldn't change this life for the world.

Rollercoasters

2010-10-18T15:35:00.002+01:00

There is no getting away from the fact that a life involved in rescue is certainly one hell of a rollercoaster ride, the joys of the success stories and the despair when there's one you can't help often merges when a dog you thought was a sweetheart decides she's not quite to nice AFTER she's been rehomed and that's exactly the news I was woken with this morning; that one of the dogs that was rehomed over the weekend wasn't quite the angel she'd led us to believe and the heart breaking decision now has to be made as to if we can risk rehoming her a second time. The news came after what had been an exceptionally fantastic weekend for me when a reunion a few of us had organised went off far far better than any of us good have ever imagined. Back in the day when we were a bunch 16/17 year old scooterist, Friday night at the Grange was about all we had to keep us entertained and every week we'd dress up in our best clothes and dance the night away to the sounds of 60s soul and 70/80s mod revival. Recent news that the Grange is to be knocked down and rebuilt prompted us to recreate the night one last time and pretty much every 40 something in Midhurst turned out to show the youth of today that we can still party 25 years on! We even got one of the original bands that used to play to reform especially for the night!!! I paid for it yesterday mind you, dancing the night away was probably not the best idea when you get to my age.

The end of the week and some thoughts of wisdom

2010-10-15T10:44:00.000+01:00

From April next year I will have been at the helm of Bulldog Rescue for 10 years, it’s been an emotional 10 years I must admit, I’ve seen sights I never thought I’d see and I’ve met people who really do make the world a better place. I’ve watched things grow from a “one man band” to a successful charity and I am very proud of what we have achieved during this time. The one thing that has never changed is the simple fact that Bulldogs will always need a rescue and despite the numbers that consistently come through I still very often hear people mutter “what do we need a rescue for”. My entire life now revolves around it so that in itself tells me that we are needed, and yet there are still breeders out there who recoil in horror at the thought of anything they’ve bred every ending up in rescue.

For those people I’d like to put the following scenario to you:

You sell a pup on a back to breeder contract, having not heard from them for several years you assume that all is well because you haven’t been asked to take the dog back at any time. Meanwhile, five or six years down the line the family suddenly find themselves in a situation that means they can no longer keep the dog and they have either forgotten, or have no intention of abiding by the clause in the contract – which of the following scenarios would you prefer happen to your pup?

a) They advertise him as “free to good home” on ePupz and he ends up with goodness knows who, goodness knows where and no one ever hears from them again
Or
b) They ask rescue to find a new home. At best we would contact the breeder and let them know based on the fact they are registered on our back to breeder scheme, or at worst find him a vetted pet home where someone is keeping a close eye on him for the rest of his life

Having something you bred land here really isn’t something to be ashamed of because faced with the two options I know exactly where I’d like my pup to be.

Like a lamb to the slaughter

2010-10-11T10:33:00.009+01:00

Well I did it, I stood up in front of almost 40 people and spoke aload!! For the first time in my life I was a speaker at a seminar instead of a guest. Six months ago I thought it was a great idea to accept the invitation, I had the exams in between so gave it very little thought after the powerpoint presentation had been created, but driving up to Coventry on Saturday morning I did utter the words "what on earth am I doing" on more than one occassion. The event was put on by an organisation called SNAG (Southern Newfoundland Action Group) and it was very well organised and turned into a very enjoyable day. Although it was a case of preaching to the converted as the event titled "Rescue and Rehoming - The challenge to find a permanant home for every dog" saw almost everyone in the audience from a rescue society of some form or another but what I really liked was the fact that we all discussed how we ran our individual organisations with each other and I'm sure that all of us went away feeling we'd learnt something from another rescue group. It's certainly something that would benefit from being done again at some point in the future I'm sure and face it there's nothing quite so wonderful as a day spent in the company of animal lovers that dedicate their entire lives to helping dogs across the country.

Keep everything crossed

2010-10-04T11:30:00.002+01:00

The past 2 weeks has been an absolute whirlwind getting ready for my exams which were Friday, I guess what is done is done and although I won't say I found them particularly difficult but there were questions I couldn't answer so all I can do now is hope that the ones I did answer are right and that it was enough to get me the pass mark. I'm not going to hear how I've done for 8 weeks so I guess I need to just put it out of my head now and get on with my life. The most important aspect of which is to catch up on all the stuff that got neglected whilst I was cramming. I did manage to get some housework done over the weekend which has made me feel a whole better, but now I'm in the office I can see just how much stuff got put to one side so please bear with me this week whilst I chase my tail - at least it'll keep my mind off the exams!!!
Thank you to everyone that has made allowances for me over the past couple of weeks and especially my family who got used to me locking myself in the bedroom and only grunting at them when I did make an appearance.

Friend or Foe ..... who on earth knows.

2010-09-23T12:37:00.002+01:00

I was sent a photo yesterday morning of supposed starving, neglected puppies via facebook (you know the one where everyone is "friends") and despite the hatred that was being spat at the owner of the pups I decided to find out the facts before joining in what eventually became nothing more than a witch hunt. The short version is that in speaking to the owner it appeared that her version of events was ever so slightly different - but to be sure and in an effort to appease the witch hunters I made the five hour round trip to check on the pups. I found a litter of three small pups that resembled typical hand reared pups that had been very ill during the first 2 weeks of their lives. However, not happy with these findings I then became the victim of the witch hunt which not only became very hurtful and very personal has made me think if rescue is really what I want to do after all. Having been told I must be blind and that I must be stupid by people that have not seen the pups or spoken to the owner my take on the human being right now is darn near zero. Especially as throughout the drive up there I was having to deal with the heartbreak from an owner who's old dog had reached the end and having called me from the vets had to say goodbye to their beautiful old man. He'd come from rescue after suffering a terrible life of numerous homes and he had had a life of neglect which in the end proved too much for his old body to cope with.
To put the record straight once and for all, the litter was not starved, nor were they neglected. They were taken 5/6 days early because the bitch was fitting. There were water pups that didn't survive (not drown in their food as someone said this morning) and the bitch had feaces in the uterus, the pups were all born full of infection and were subsequently rejected by the mother. The vet gave them only a few hours to live but the owner battled through thick and thin to save them and she did by hand rearing them on her own despite suffering MS. I have been appalled by the behaviour and the language of people who've been in the breed five minutes and assume they know it all. These same people are the future of this breed - gawd help us!
So on that note I'd better do some of the studying I should have been doing last night before I leave for my course tomorrow.

Kaboooooooooom !

2010-09-22T10:08:00.004+01:00

I can't believe how busy rescue has suddenly got, I've said before that as soon as the kids go back to school after the Summer hols things go mad, but Monday alone was manic and I've actually lost track of who's been asked to do what - thank goodness for Georgia who is quite possible the most amazing thing that's happened in rescue for a long time. She takes so much pressure off of me organising home checks and pick ups and home visits but Monday was a particularly crazy day and it left me a little out of it come Tuesday. A lot of people I know with CFS/ME say that there's more bad days than good days, but yesterday was a particularly bad day to the point that I had to give in and take the day off - I've not been that bad in a very long time but Sunday's early start and Monday's rescue flurry certainly didn't help, on top of all of that the studying is really difficult. I have no idea how I am going to remember all of this stuff but did get alot of studying done yesterday much to Hilda's disgust as she had no idea that "PJ day" meant that I got the sofa! If nothing else I can now tell you the difference between a Viral infection and a bacterial infection - no idea why I need to know that in order to prescribe wormers but there you go.

Back to School

2010-09-20T10:31:00.003+01:00

What a lovely weekend, there are so many bulldogs here and they are all so wonderful it's a real pleasure to spend time with them, shame really that we had to be away from the kennel all day Sunday but we had a fabulous day at the South of England Bulldog Club Champ show with the stall. We received some fantastic feed back on the Picnic too, so many who had been for the first time this year were eager to tell us just what a great time they'd had - makes it all worth while. The early start wasn't easy on a Sunday morning I can tell you, and creeping out without waking the kennel so they didn't bark the place down before Peter, Bev and Dawn arrived to see to them was fun - especially with a deisel engine - which incidentally is working fine following the enormous cock up in the week.

So now the countdown to my SQP exam begins. I have a one day course at MYF Vet Nurse Training on Friday and then next Friday is both the Base and the Companion Animal exam so the cramming has begun, despite the past 2 years of trying to learn this stuff I'm shocked at just how little has gone in! Wish me luck

Now it's a Hurricane!

2010-09-17T10:18:00.003+01:00

In hindsight Wednesday evening was quite funny but at the time it was really scary - I've always said that the down side of owning a petrol car and a diesel van is that at some point the wrong fuel would go into one of them - and guess what!!! On our way up to London to collect a dog from the PDSA and a gift in we stopped for fuel - guess who started putting petrol in the diesel engine??? Thank fully I realised what I was doing at 99p and the garage assured me that as I had filled the tank to the brim with diesel all would be well. Well we made it to London and back without even a hiccup so I guess we got away with it, but didn't you just know that sooner or later that would be the inevitable cock up.
We had a lovely little girl come in via the RSPCA earlier on Wednesday and the 2 arrivals that night have brought us up to 6 at the kennel, there's 2 more coming tomorrow morning and the Battersea dog is due to land early next week and that's us full again, hard to imagine that this time last week we were scratching around for something to do!

The storm has hit

2010-09-15T12:15:00.002+01:00

The weekend just gone we had just 2 bulldogs at our kennels in Midhurst and I joked about it being the Lull before the Storm. Well the storm has hit - with a new arrival Monday night and we have one due in at lunch time today and another due in tonight. Friday will also see the girls in Southampton come to the kennel as they have both come into season and the owners house move means we've run out of time. There is a probable home for one of them but we need to wait until the season is over before we move them now. A call from Battersea this morning also means another is pencilled in pending veterinary treatment. This is such a familiar pattern, as soon as the kids go back to school after the Summer hols the dogs literally land in their droves. The new kennel floor is fabulous though and I keep finding myself reasons to be out there LOL.
One of the dogs in our Oxford foster home was attacked by an off lead SBT at the end of last week, poor Paddy was due to go to his new home today but the vet has requested that we keep him in care until the treatment has finished - you can read the story in the Oxford Mail.

Lull Before the Storm

2010-09-13T13:48:00.006+01:00

This weekend was certainly the perfect time to have the kennel floor done, already this morning I have had 5 new enquiries for dogs to be rehomed and 2 or 3 of them are going to need to come to the kennel. But the floor looks amazing and I thoroughly recommend this to anyone with a kennel - I never realised how much urine that concrete floor had absorbed over the past 12 years until he put the blow torch over it to make sure it was fully dry!!! and now everything is back in I am thrilled to bits with the outcome. What amazed me was how big the grooming/treatment room is without anything in it, and I did comment that he wasn't to let Diz see the floor without the pens, just in case he asked for his garage back! Sadly, now everything is back in place it doesn't look quite so massive any more but it was very theraputic to have a real good clear out. For more information about the company that laid this floor go to http://kennelflooring.co.uk/

FIVE MORE MINUTES .....

2010-09-09T10:39:00.002+01:00

The picnic is a lot of fun but boy does it wipe me out! I noticed at the beginning of the week that ME/CFS has received some media coverage in so far as there's been a little more research to suggest that it's actually not all in the mind - wow, tell me something I don't know because I really could do with an energy boost right now but as the old saying goes there's no rest for the wicked. The kennels are thankfully very quiet and it looks like both Meghan and Tank are away soon which will just leave us with lovable - but very naughty Alfie. The new kennel maid, Annie has been doing a lot of work with Alfie and he's calming down a little on his walks, since the recent incident he's having to be walked on a double lead and a muzzle which he's not at all happy about but it allows us to actually work with the behaviour as opposed to worrying about him eating a passing poodle for breakfast. Being a young dog, he is very eager to please but bear in mind this wee chap has already had 4 homes and his dog aggression is almost definitely the result of being attacked by a PitBull as a pup and by all account it took 20 minutes to free him, so when you look at life from Alfies perspective hating male dogs is a justifiable reaction but it really doesn't do our rescue's (or the breeds) reputation much kudos !!!
At the beginning of the year we were giving a lovely donation in memory of Mrs Shirley Yap from her daughter, it was requested that some of the money be spent on improving the kennels and as we are currently unusually very quiet we're taking the opportunity to have the indoor kennel floor done. We tend to use the 3 pens inside as hospital pens so on Sunday the floor of all three pens and the grooming/treatment room will be laid with a purpose made resin via a company in Essex (Specialised Flooring Solutions Ltd). However, the down side is that the kennel has to be emptied and the grooming/treatment room contains a grooming table/scales, a fridge/freezer, kitchen units, feed station and quite possibly something horrendously yuk behind each one! Thankfully Dawn, Peter and Bev have kindly agreed to help out on Saturday so if you hear any of us squealing you know we've found something very unsavoury and hopefully very dead!
As the countdown begins for my SQP exam next month so do the preparations for the conference I've been asked to speak at. Under the Heading "RESCUE & REHOMING: The challenge to find a loving home for every dog" sees 5 speakers from different aspects of Rescue and Rehoming and you can read all about it via the face book page. There are 10 tickets reserved for bulldog people and a couple of them have already gone so if you want to witness my first ever attempt at public speaking feel free to come along for the laugh.

ARE WE THERE YET?

2010-09-07T12:38:00.016+01:00

Well, what can I say, the 13th Annual Bulldog Picnic was quite possibly the best bulldog picnic EVER!!! Yes, I know I say that every year but OMG we lost count after 500 people had come through the gate! The additional parking this year was a godsend and my dad and one of our volunteers; Joanne coped admirably with the 100s of cars that needed to be placed in a way that didn't upset the residents of Pook Lane. Thanks also to everyone that followed directions and parked where they were supposed to.

The afternoon raised £3,000 for Bulldog Rescue and for the first time we started 2 hours earlier and asked a couple of speakers to talk. I wasn't sure how well this would be received, but Sue Phillips' Grooming demonstration and Steve Battens Behaviour talk were both very well attended and both received really good feedback with most people reporting that the talks were very helpful.

The entire event was this year filmed by Sky TV as part of a forthcoming documentary ("Dogumentary") due to be aired in November. They were there mainly to film the fancy dress competition as the documentary is following the 2 judges around different canine events, I did undertake an very awkward interview which I hope isn't used as I felt very uncomfortable talking to a camera in the middle of a field, but they have assured me that none of the footage will be used in a way that brings any more bad press to the breed and the director actually commented on what a fantastic breed the bulldog is. "Rambo" won this year and I must admit he looked absolutely fantastic - bearing in mind part of the documentary will be putting voices to some of the dogs it's going to be hillarious to hear what he has to say about his afternoon.

As usual the Rescue Parade bought in the crowd and as this is the highlight of my day too it was just so wonderful to see some of the dogs come back to see us, all looking so well and happy. After which we showed off 2 dogs from the Kennel that were looking for homes, Mo and Meghan had a fantastic afternoon, and both were absolutely shattered when they got back to the kennel.

Sadly, Mo didn't wake up the next morning, but I'd like to think that she died in the middle of a lovely dream remembering her day out as she really did seem to enjoy her afternoon out. Ironically, Mo arrived in rescue at last year's picnic so exactly a year to the day she decided it was time to leave, a big shock for me I can tell you, but she looked so peaceful in her bed fast asleep that I just hope she had fun on her last day and that she has fond memories of me and the rest of kennel crew that have helped to care for her this last year. Run free Mo, thank you for chosing us to wait for.

So, now that everything is finally put away for another year and we go back to the usual day to day stuff we are already looking forward to next years picnic - the 14th Annual Bulldog Picnic takes place on Saturday 3rd September - put it in your diary NOW

Tears and Joy

2010-08-23T16:31:00.003+01:00

The weekend was a series of tears and joy, helping a young family with the horror of buying a bulldog on line only to find that he had a nasty streak that resulted in the husband having to be taken to hospital by ambulance was eased a little when I invited them to bring the children for a visit to help them see that not all bulldogs were like that. The result was that little Daisy who'd only been in rescue less than a week and was struggling dreadfully with the surroundings of the kennel made such an impression on them that they were back the next morning to take her home. I can't tell you how wonderful it was to see her interacting with the children and there's no doubt they've helped each other through what could have been a terrible point in all their lives.
The worst part though of the entire weekend was an incident in the woods when one of the rescues decided that the border terrier coming towards him was fair game, the poor dog walker lost her footing in the mud and the result was carnage. Thankfully the little dog is fine and the owners, despite being understandably shocked, have been marvelous. Being neighbours I was able to visit the little dog today and despite his grand old age of 13 is recovering well and milking the extra attention for everything it's worth.
Then on Sunday I had a paw print added to the new tattoo for Maggie, losing Maggie has been one of the hardest deaths I've had to deal with in a very long time and by marking her alongside the other 10 paw prints on the tattoo was very therapeutic. Rest in Peace my sweet baby, I hope we made your awful life a little more bearable in your final years.

WANNA BE ON THE TELLY?

2010-08-17T13:40:00.003+01:00

With all the bad publicity surrounding bulldogs (pedigree dogs, vets, dog owners) etc recently it should be a refreshing change to have this years Bulldog Picnic featured as part of Sky1's forthcoming programme "Dogumentary". The fancy dress competition will be the focus, so make sure you dress to impress!
Yesterday saw our new kennel maid start at the kennels in Midhurst, she insists we havn't frightened her off with all those wrinkly faces, so here's to a long and happy relationship with Annie and we welcome you on board.

15 Years .....

2010-08-12T11:15:00.003+01:00

It was 15 years ago today that I moved into this house. It was damp, abandoned (had been empty for over a year) and over grown, but there was something about it. We couldn't afford it, despite the fact that the price had been very much reduced due to the fact that it had been empty for so long, but somehow we found the money to buy it. The gas board came out to service the heating and slapped condemned stickers on everything and left. There was a gas leak under the entire house by all accounts, they muttered something about it not being their job, turned the gas off at the mains and drove off!

Both Dizzy and I had not long been separated from our previous marriages, he had one cantankerous old bulldog called Bessie who hated children and I had two children aged 5 and 6!

Over the years this house has proved to be perfect for everything we've ever needed to do, as what started out as just needing room for a home office and storage for stock for the record business, became room for show dogs and litters, became room for rescue kennels, became room for stock storage for Reggie's Den and it all just seemed to fit into place perfectly.

We've done very little to the soul of the building and when the medium came out on my birthday she said that there was a lady attached to this house who approved of the fact that we'd not changed much. Apparently she acknowledged the fact that we'd built kennels and approved of the rescue, saying she liked the energy the dogs bought to the place.

Maggie's grave was bulldog number 14 in the little grave yard at the bottom of the garden, 11 of which have been our own pets and 3 rescues, of course there beach pebbles remember all the others.

15 years ago by life changed, I found Diz again, I left my marriage behind me, moved out of the horrible rented rabbit hutch my kids and I had been forced to live in and moved into the house that I plan to stay in for the rest of my life (and beyond). Today is a very special day and it also means there's only 10 years left on the mortgage!

The countdown to the Picnic has begun

2010-08-11T10:28:00.003+01:00

There's less than a month until the infamous Bulldog Picnic holds it's 13th Event!! We've extended it this year for the first time and tried to make it a little more educational. We've got Sue from Sue's Animal Magic giving a grooming demo and she'll be able to tell you how to deal with those cute wrinkles and troublesome ears. Steve Batten - a behaviourist who often gives advice for Bulldog Rescue will also be giving a talk on some of the breeds more common behaviour issues and answering questions on specific problems. Tania is also making herself available for a while to advise on specific problems that you may need advice on so make sure you arrive nice and early to make the most of the additional events that are taking place.
For the first time too, we've been given additional parking space, regular visitors will be aware that the parking has become troublesome over the past few years so the local football club have given us permission to use the football field. This is the gate to the left right on the roundabout as you come off the main road.
The Picnic opens at 12 noon and continues through to 5pm and as usual we will have a fancy dress parade and the rescue parade. Be aware that Sky 1 will be filming the fancy dress as they are currently following Joanne Good (who has again agreed to judge the competition) and Anna Webb around some of the UKs more unusual doggy events for a "dogumentary" so make sure you bring the best fancy dress outfit - part of the programme will feature putting voices to the dogs so it should make very interesting viewing!!
For a complete guide to what's happening when, directions, weather and lists of places to stay go to the Picnic web site at www.bulldogrescue.co.uk/Picnic.htm
As you know at each years picnic we give someone in the breed an award for outstanding contribution to Bulldog Welfare. This is your last chance to nominate someone as the trustees will decide at the end of next week who gets it
Go to http://www.bulldogrescue.co.uk/award.htm to nominate
See you there!!!!

Back to Work - Day One

2010-08-09T12:55:00.003+01:00

Up bright and early this morning, did loads of housework and was busy washing the floor in the living room when it dawned on me that Maggie had made no effort to say hello, not unusual for her to stay asleep, even when I'm hoovering but she was unusually still. Imagine my shock when I realised she'd gone and I'd been in that room cleaning for at least an hour and hadn't noticed. I felt so terrible, but she was definitely dead and had been for many hours as she was rigid, but fast a sleep and so very peaceful. She will take the last available space in the graveyard and already I need another paw print adding to the tattoo. We were called out on a rescue call yesterday afternoon, but she seemed her normal self and Peter and Beverly said there was nothing unusual about her when they left here early evening. She ate fine and Hilda had been cuddled up to her on the sofa as usual this morning so there was no real need to suspect anything untoward but I can't tell you the guilt I'm feeling right now.

Maggie had appeared on TV a couple of time, once on the Channel Five news and she appeared on the One Show next to Adam Sandler, but what kicked it all off was her appearance on the Paul O'grady show. She'd arrived in rescue several months earlier having been bought out of a violent household but a policeman. He had tried to keep her but she was terribly incontinent, very frightened and incredibly over bred so he gave her up to us. She was rehomed twice, but sadly returned twice due to her lack of house training so when we were asked to take a dog on the Homeless Dog's section, she seemed the perfect choice. A home was actually found from that TV appearance, but the new owners vet insisted she had cancer and should be put to sleep, thankfully I arrived at the vets before they had chance to go through with it and snatched her back deciding that enough was enough and that we'd keep her here. That was over 3 years ago, we had her boobs removed to stop her tripping over them any more and she had a complete hysterectomy which dealt with her internal infections from being so over bred and subsequently cured her incontinence. The operation lasted over 6 hours and it was touch and go if she'd survive, but she did and despite the scar that ran the full length of her underside, she recovered perfectly. She hated walking and would pretend to limp if you tried to get her to go for a walk, but had her own spot on the end of the sofa where she refused to budge - even when the floor was layed in the living room she stayed on the sofa as the workmen carried it from one side of the room to the other as they layed the floor around her.

So back to work this morning with lots of orders to wade through, so please bear with us, thankfully the phone is being unusually kind to me, even for the first day back when I expected it to not stop ringing so thank you everyone for giving me some space to get my head round this mornings events.

Holiday - Day One

2010-08-02T21:54:00.003+01:00

The tattoo is finished, although I'm already making plans to extend it!!! Its sore again today but that'll soon pass I'm sure.

The first day of my holiday and Dizzy and I went to the sea side, had a lovely late lunch and a little stroll along the front - interrupted by one "urgent" call from someone who's new dog had made the cats leave home, after spending most of the evening trying to sort something out as I'm fairly near them tomorrow, they informed me at 9pm they'd found a home via the previous owner - lets hope this time it's permanent but I did tell them we were here if for any reason it didn't work out.

Following tonight's episode of Panorama, I'm sure that many people across the country are horrified at the number of dogs that are put to sleep every year due to aggressive behaviour. At Battersea, the figures disclosed showed that almost as many were put to sleep last year as they actually rehomed. This is an awful side to rescue and one that none of us ever ever get used to, but it is sadly a necessary evil in so far as putting a dog that is potentially dangerous back into the public domain is not only irresponsible but could land the rescue involved in court under the dangers dog law. What a lot of people don't realise is that you are held responsible for any behaviour your dog displays, especially if you knew the dog had behaved in that way before - so putting a known biter out for rehoming is not only putting people at risk but also incredibly irresponsible of the charity. Here at Bulldog Rescue we are lucky insofar as we don't see a vast number of situations where dogs are being put down because they are dangerous, but there are a handful that come through the system where it is our only option. One of the vets on the program summed things up perfectly by saying that putting them down was not the rescues responsibility - it was the owner who had failed the dog by not taking responsibility for the dog's behaviour and in most cases turn them out as strays or gifting them in with a watered down version of events. We see approximately 5-10 cases each year where the dog is deemed too dangerous to rehome (and we don't put anything down for being dog aggressive as sadly that's often a bulldog trait), but we receive fairly high number of calls from people who's reason for rehoming is due to a bite where the dogs never come into the system. We consistently see vets who refuse to put the dog to sleep and we even get calls from the vets themselves begging us to do something to save the dog when we simply cannot take the risk, not only to the general public but to the reputation of the breed.

I've already received emails this evening asking what we can do, once again I will get on my soap box and scream two words "DOG LICENCE". As the RSPCA chap pointed out, there are tighter rules in respect of owning a television and for some reason the government are so dead against any kind of licencing system that things can only get worse (and I never thought I'd actually agree with anything an RSPCA spokesman had to say!). You can read my thoughts here with regard to the need for a licence and for compulsory microchipping which would (in most cases) identify the person that callously abandoned their dog for whatever reason and like the number plate on a car would track ownership throughout the dogs life time. Status symbol dogs, breeding for money, breeding because "it's good for the bitch to have one litter" has to stop, they interviewed one SBT "breeder" (and I use the term lightly) who openly admitted his bitch was a rescue! She'd whelped six pups in the kitchen of his tower block flat.

All I can say at this point is thank goodness we are not Staffordshire Bull Terrier rescue because right now these poor people simply cannot cope with the number of dogs being abandoned after being trained to be dog aggressive - there is no future for these poor dogs and rescues across the UK will continue to have to kill healthy dogs because society made them into monsters. Until the laws are tightened up when it comes to dog ownership nothing will ever change I'm afraid and I can only see things getting worse and worse from this point on

A well deserved rest ...... ?

2010-07-30T10:34:00.002+01:00

Well we will certainly see. During the course of the year we take two weeks off, one at Christmas and the first week in August. The plan is to do very little, take days out, sleep, garden and enjoy the sunshine (assuming it's still shining next week). Today is pretty much the day to get all those lose ends tied up and to be honest - it ain't gonna happen LOL but we will see, I can always sneak into the office at some point during the course of the week as it's much easier to get things done when you don't have to continuously answer the phone. Not many people know, as I've never really made it public, but I suffer a condition known as CFS, it's a mild form of ME so not quite so debilitating but it does mean that when I crash, I really crash. I've had it for quite a few years so have learned how to manage it but it's very easy to do too much without realising it, which is not too difficult when you have as much to do in a day as I do, it means though that I tend to pin everything on this week off in the hope that I will be fully charged and rearing to go at the end of it - the problem is that at the end of the week all the work has piled up and the first day back tends to wipe me out again which makes the rest pretty pointless which is one of the reasons why we don't actually go away on holiday, but it is really nice to wake up in the morning and not HAVE to actually get out of it LOL - there's nothing quite like watching day time telly in bed is there? I'm getting the tattoo finished on Sunday and have lots of plans for my garden so lets hope the nice weather holds out for just one more week - ppppplllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ;o)

Morning Peeps

2010-07-26T12:58:00.006+01:00

Well I finally bit the bullet and had the big tattoo done on Saturday, it needs a little bit more work but after 4 hours I'd really had enough, it didn't hurt until the last half an hour but I am thrilled to bits with it. It depicts Rainbow Bridge, 10 paw prints for my own dogs that are waiting at the bridge and the pebbles are (as you know) representing rescue dogs that are waiting. There's a background to go in and the bulldog head that was already there needs going over again once it's all healed, it's a little sore today but no pain, no gain as they say

At the bottom of my garden I've got a magical fairy garden, yesterday I bought a solar fairy sitting on a globe that glows different colours - you should have seen Hilda trying to work it out, to say she was experiencing a combination of curiosity and total fear really summed her up - watching her stalking it was hilarious!

It shouldn't happen at a vets BBC1 22 July 2010

2010-07-23T09:40:00.004+01:00

Well, what did you make of it? Personally it came across to me like another docu-hatchet job as apart from the inflated invoices which I've talked about before and will talk about again in a mo, the footage of cruelty appeared to be straw grabbing trying to sensensionalise the odd occassion when something went wrong. I'm not saying that spinning a cat round by it's scruff whilst giving an injection is right (and that vet was struck off), nor am I saying that the joking of the cat who was fighting back when his Pre-Med had worn off is acceptable. I'm certainly not saying that striking a dog after major surgery is normal, but nor is it common and the poor Red Setter fighting to catch his breath was very upsetting indeed but if that's the worst they can come up with then things really aren't that bad, I was expecting real cruelty on a major scale but what I saw was sensationalised errors made by trainee staff that should never have been in that situation in the first place.
However, when it comes to money the new "branded" vet "business" does have some serious let downs. It was pretty much admitted that if an animal was brought in limping, rather than go for the rest and anti inflammatories and see what happens they would jump straight in with thousands of pounds worth of tests - that has been going on for a while and we see a huge difference in the vet bills that come through rescue with those that have come from a rural old fashioned vet and those that come from the big "chains" such a MediVet and VetsNow. The new rule that you must pay BEFORE the animal receives treatment is also on the increase and I'm not at all suprised that insurance claims were being falsley lodged in order to gain as much money as possible from one single treatment.
The vet profession has certainly changed over the years, especially in the last 5 years as many of the rural vets have been taken over by big businesses and I've talked before about how animals are held to ransom pending full payment which is most definately wrong and bearing in mind all vets take an oath to treat all animals the money really shouldn't be the first priority, in fact I think it's illegal to do so under RCVS rules (maybe someone could clarify that for me).
So let me know your thoughts on the programme, if you missed it I guess it's on iPlayer so take a look at see what you think

Life, Death and Holidays

2010-07-21T10:53:00.002+01:00

Our new arrivals story started yesterday morning with a phone call at 20 to 2 in the morning from a distraught owner who was frantically trying to arrange something for her bulldog when her friend who was looking after him told her he no longer wanted him. So after many hours of tears and conversations with the local volunteer, dear Alfie arrived, very bewildered but OK and pleased to be able to settle down in his bed with a bowl full of food.
Sunday sees our lodger move out and my daughter move back in. Mark has a new flat to move into but I can see it being a very long day and if you read the story in the paper about the boy killed on the M23 at the weekend, that was in fact his cousin so there's lot going on in his family right now and another house move is probably the last thing he needs.
As for me, well my annual week off looms ever closer - for the first week of August I will, as usual, be in hibernation, only contact me if you absolutely have to LOL

Calm Memories

2010-07-19T10:25:00.003+01:00

What a lovely weekend, despite the fact that the pub we ate at on Saturday night caught fire and in true British tradition everyone ignored it and carried on eating, until someone shouted "the store rooms on fire" to the bar staff who then promptly disappeared leaving a customer to grab the fire extinguisher. Diz had only just said to me he could smell burning plastic but thought it was a vain attempt at starting a barbecue. Once the drama was over everyone carried on like it had never happened - God bless the Great British Public LOL

Sunday was peaceful, time spent between gardening and studying saw the beginnings of my pond area begin to take shape, can't say I'm looking forward to digging it though!!!!!

Diz sorted through some old paperwork that he found in a box in the cupboard and in amongst piles of pedigrees dating back to the early 1970s was some old rescue paperwork. A letter from Liz Heslop dated May 1980 welcoming a new volunteer to the fold and the original sign over forms and home check form - to be honest they are not that much different to what we use now and to me was really fascinating to see how things were at the very beginning. You can take a look at the memorabilia which is listed on ebay (the money will go to Bulldog Rescue, Diz listed it under the wrong account) and see full size copies of the letter and the forms.

YOU GOT THAT FRIDAY FEELING?

2010-07-16T15:49:00.002+01:00

It's Friday already, my day sick has thrown me into confusion (not that I usually have any idea what day of the week it is anyway). I've got 3 days off in the kennel now with help coming in today, Saturday and Sunday and the inflatable Gerbil that is fondly known as Blossom has gone in to a foster home in an attempt to house train her. There's a few new dogs waiting to be listed which I will try and do this afternoon or tomorrow so if you are a regular to our Homes Needed page make sure you check it out.
If you are not yet a member of Reggie's Den Face Book club be sure to join, we are running a series of special offers just for our Face Book members to check it out, you can find the link at www.reggies-den.co.uk
Have a great weekend, it's meant to get warmer again so keep an eye on those bulldogs

What a difference a day makes

2010-07-15T09:40:00.002+01:00

Where's the Summer gone? It's blowing a gale force wind here today!!!!! Thankfully all is still standing and I had the forthought yesterday to get Jason to take the Gazebo down before it decided to visit the land of Oz!!
Yesterday was a bit of a time waster, I didn't feel right Tuesday night and woke yesterday to the most horrendous stomach ache, the initial plan was just to take the morning off but I didn't feel better all day so spent most of yesterday sleeping - I know I often wish for a day in bed, but it just goes to show that you have to be careful what you wish for LOL as today is going to be spent chasing my tail trying to catch up. It was nice, but I am sorry to anyone that couldn't reach me yesterday, there's a number of messages for me to sort through so please bear with me as I work my way through them

Lets hope the St Swithin's theory is wrong or we are in for a pretty rough Summer.

St Swithin's Day, if thou dost rain,
For forty days it will remain:
St. Swithin's Day, if thou be fair,
For forty days 'twill rain nae mair.'

Much is written on the threory of St Swithin's day, most notably that

"St. Swithin, bishop of Winchester, was a man equally noted for his uprightness and humility. So far did he carry the latter quality, that, on his death-bed, he requested to be buried, not within the church, but outside in the churchyard, on the north of the sacred building, where his corpse might receive the eaves-droppings from the roof, and his grave be trodden by the feet of the passers-by. His lowly request was complied with, and in this neglected spot his remains reposed till about a hundred years afterwards, when a fit of indignation seized the clergy at the body of so pious a member of their order being allowed to occupy such a position; and on an appointed day they all assembled to convey it with great pomp into the adjoining cathedral of Winchester. When they were about to commence the ceremony, a heavy rain burst forth, and continued without intermission for the forty succeeding days. The monks interpreted this tempest as a warning from Heaven of the blasphemous nature of their attempt to contravene the directions of St. Swithin, and, instead of disturbing his remains, they erected a chapel over his grave"
How, then, did the popular notion about St. Swithin's Day arise? "Most probably, it was derived from some primeval pagan belief regarding the meteorologically prophetic character of some day about the same period of the year as St. Swithin's. Such adaptations, it is well known, were very frequent on the supplanting throughout Europe of heathenism by Christianity. Many of our popular customs and beliefs can indeed be only satisfactorily explained by tracing them to such a source."

So Pagan or Christian, looks like we are in for a rough ride LOL

Source:http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/july/15.htm

The holidays are coming .....

2010-07-13T12:11:00.002+01:00

And with it comes the deluge of calls from people who need their dogs picking up urgently because they are going away, like, now!!! There will be a rush of foster cases during the last couple of weeks of July and then come August things start to settle a little as the kids are off school and looking after the dog becomes a little easier. The phone hasn't stopped yet this morning, there certainly is no rest for the wicked LOL
I've had confirmation of the Seminar in October, there will be a maximum of 10 tickets reserved for bulldog people that will be on a first come first served basis so if you are hoping to come it might be an idea to let me know, I should have an idea of the ticket price within the next few days.

New Week, New Start

2010-07-12T10:56:00.003+01:00

Not only is it a new week but it's a new moon so it's an excellent day to draw a line under any bad stuff and start completely afresh. Bad stuff certainly became the theme of the weekend following the tragic death of a bulldog in transit to her new home on Saturday afternoon. What made it so upsetting for all involved was that the dog wasn't hot or distressed she simply died in her sleep. It was very difficult for all concerned to come to terms with and many hours has been spent on the phone trying to make sense of it. In reality, there is no sense to be made; it's a risk we all take, but I just wanted to use this tragidy to relay some basic rules when transporting dogs, especially bulldogs, especially in the Summer months.

If you have air conditioning, keep it at a constant cool temperature and keep the windows shut, if you don't have air conditioning then please do not travel any dog on a hot day unless you absolutely have too - waiting until later in the day when it is much cooler and safer. Open windows are fine until you get stuck in traffic and that when you can no longer control the interior temperature of the car and an overheating situation could occur.

One of the biggest misconceptions when travelling dogs is that you need to stop frequently, you don't! I can't stress this enough because each time you stop, get the dog out of the car, walk it around in the sun and put it back in the car you are unsettling the dog all over again. If you need to stop for a wee or a coffee feel free to offer your dog a drink but don't feel the need to take him out for a wee too unless he really needs to go and if he's settled then just leave him alone.

The following was written for rescue volunteers transporting dogs to foster care, but it may be useful for the general public to have access to it also - please feel free to read it here

The evening became a little less stressful though as my daughter's birthday brought about a small party in the garden, and as the night drew on and the bottle of wine I was drinking grew lighter the awful events of the day were finally fading into a blur. The party went ahead with no hitches or hiccups and as someone had brought some chinse lanterns we had great fun letting them go and watching them travel for miles in the skies above Midhurst - sorry to anyone that found one Sunday morning with the ravings of a group of kids scrawled over them - well I say kids, Katie was 22 on Saturday but I guess when you reach my age anyone under the age of 30 is a child LOL

My PowerPoint presentation is finished and I'm actually rather pleased with it, I've never used PowerPoint before and was suprised at how much fun it was. So Sunday I sat in the sun for most of the day studying from my AMTRA training manual and hoping enough of this information stays in my brain for me to actually pass the exam in October.

Have a great week and please look after your bulldog.

Another Scorcher

2010-07-09T10:38:00.003+01:00

Today is goig to be hotter than ever so please be extra careful with your bulldogs. Page 81 of the Bulldog Bible tells you what to do if your bulldog overheats and there's info here too but it's best to play it safe and keep him inside with the curtains closed and the fans running, I've not had any calls yet from anyone losing their bulldog to the heat please don't let your's be the first victim of the Summer.
I spent most of yesterday learning how to use PowerPoint - oh it's so much fun LOL. I've been asked to do a 20 minute presentation in October about Bulldog Rescue for the Southern Newfoundland Activies Group alongside Labrador Rescue, Newfoundland Rescue and a general all breed rescue. Tickets will go on sale soon and there's hopefully going to be about 20 reserved for Bulldog Pet Owners so keep an eye on this blog and I'll let you know when they go on general sale (I could really do with the support too LOL). It's going to be in one of the Kennel Club Meeting Rooms in Warwickshire on Saturday 9th October so pencil that in your diary now!
And if you're wondering why on earth I'm putting that together now when I've got until October to get it sorted, it's because I've finally booked my SQP exam for the beginning of October so I need all the spare time I can get between now and then to cram as much swatting in as I possibly can.
Stay safe

Rise but no shine

2010-07-08T10:20:00.002+01:00

Well the weekend had to catch up with me soon or later, yes I overslept this morning - I really couldn't get up and now I am up, feel like shite. Every night so far this week has been a late one, home check Monday, dog introduction Tuesday and a home check last night I don't feel like I've slept for a year. Both homechecks were very successful though so that's two more dogs with a forever home and poor old Oscar who arrived here on Monday looking very sad and sorry for himself met his new girlfriend Tuesday and will be set to leave once he's recovered from his neglect issues later next month. I'll try and keep a diary for him once I've got some photos and bring you up to date with his story.
Lots of you have asked after Mabel, well, she's still very pale but eating normally and back to her old grumpy self. My gut feeling is that there's a problem somewhere but I think it's going to be a while before we find out what that is. She's looking very thin but now her appetite is back hopefully that will rectify.
Well, I'd better get a rocket under me and get to work, ho hum - another busy day I'm sure as I plan to get some rehoming done today

Sun, grass and sores

2010-07-06T10:48:00.004+01:00

Hilda's latest favourite past time is to rub herself upside down on the short brown grass until she's bleeding! She's been doing his now for about 3 weeks and is a series of healed, creamed and bleeding sores all around her neck and shoulders. This time of year often sees an increase in skin problems, some of it's allergies to the grass, some of it is scratching from being so hot and if your dog only ever suffers problems in the Summer it can usually be kept under control by treating each sore spot as it arises. I do know that many people give anti histamines during the Summer but unless your dog is really suffering I do worry about that. Bathe each sore spot with salt water, pat dry and then apply sudocrem - if you see the area has healed or is starting to heal after 48 hours than this will work for your dog, if the areas start to spread and you find that you can pull chunks of fur out like you were plucking a chicken then a short course of anti biotics may help as this is a sign that the area has become infected. I know that many vets love to prescribe steroids for skin problems and I can't stress enough that this really should be a last case resort because long term use of steroids can lead to other problems, one of the dogs we recently rehomed has just suffered a bout of pancreaitis which the vet has presumed is due to the long term use of steroids.

Food can be a great contributor to skin problems, anything with a lot of colouring or a protein level of more than 24% is a definite no for dogs with sensitive skin, feed something along the lines of James Wellbeloved, Arden Grange or Burns as these foods tend to have less fillers (ie: crap off the abatoire floor), for some dogs feeding a fish based food such as James Wellbeloved White fish and rice or Burns Fish and Potato is helpful, but be wary of allergy test - they will simply tell you your dog is allergic to pollen and dust mites - neither of which you can do anything about and are usually a total waste of time, effort and money.

Malaseb is another vet fave, I just noticed that's being sold at £20 a bottle!!!! The big problem I have with baths as a treatment for skin is the simple fact that bathing dries the skin, makes it flaky which makes it itchy - try not to over bath your dog it can often prove to be counter productive and for what it's worth Medichems Sporal D shampoo (available from http://www.reggies-den.co.uk/) is just as good, if not better.

I think one of the main issues is the fact that vets not only feel the need to make money out of every dog that walks through the door (especially the pedigrees) but also that they have to be seen to be doing something. You really don't always need the pills and potions they prescribe, salt water, sudocrem and decent diet is often all you need to get you through the summer and an anti histamine reserved for really bad days or for dogs with a genuine allergy to pollen.

Earth, here I come ... with a thump

2010-07-05T09:38:00.002+01:00

Monday morning, my pet Bristolian, as she became fondly known, is back in Bristol, the alarm sounded again this morning and there's dogs to feed and shite to clear ... my 48 hour holiday is officially over!!! To be fair I had 12 hours more than last year as I stayed over night this year, thanks so much to Peter and Bev and Dawn who made that possible, especially Peter who's recovering from surgery and probably could have done without my problems this weekend! Dizzy coped very well on his own and did tell me that Jason was an absolute star - thanks to them too for allowing me to disappear for a couple of days, it was just what the doctor ordered.

It is strange though being back in surroundings that were normal for you when you were 17 but not quite so normal aged 43, when someone asks if you've seen their husband/boyfriend/friend and they are described as fat, bald and tattooed - it narrows it down to most of the men on the site as most of the people there are in their 40s now.

We spent Saturday catching up with old friends, Ali from our scooter club was having her hen do at Camber and they looked like they were having a fantastic time, complete with cardboard Elvis. We spent most of the evening in the Soul room and even entered the dancing competition, we didn't win (or come anywhere near winning) but i did get further than Debbie, dressing up as we would have done all those years ago - complete with false eyelashes was the funniest thing I've done in a long time, our chalet was stroon with make up and clothes just as it would have been back in 1982 when were there for the first time on holiday with our parents. Camber Sands formed a very special friendship and all these years later we are still good friends, Godmothers to each others eldest daughters and despite the miles between us have remained increadibly good friends over the years. Our annual pilgrimage to Camber Sands scooter rally looks like it's going to be a regular event so that leave 364 days until my next day off.

Midhurst 2 Bristol 0

2010-07-02T10:11:00.002+01:00

The Bristolian landed safely and my living room now resembles a teenagers bedroom! I've just popped into the office whilst she's in the shower (she'll be in there for hours) to get things up todate before we head off to Camber Sands tomorrow. Thanks to everyone that sent Mabel get well wishes, she has proved to be a real mystery - despite still being increadibly pale, all her blood tests have come back normal. She has eaten today though and seems a lot perkier so we have absolutely no idea what is wrong with her, time will tell no doubt, but for today she's fine and currently fast asleep on the sofa bed making the most of it being empty no doubt.

Good news and Bad News all in the space of an hour

2010-07-01T12:20:00.011+01:00

Today sees the launch of the annual calendar competition. You have 20 days to get your photos in so pop yourself along to the competition web site and get snapping!

Do you remember Claire? Here's a little reminder

Well I had a little visiter this morning .... Guess who this is ...

Can you beleive it's the same dog????????????? Sadly the visit was breif as I was on my way out to the vet with Mabel who's not been very well, nothing I can put my finger on but she's lost a lot of weight recently and her appetite over the past few days has been zero. Her colour is appaulling and she's taken to hiding in the corner so they've taken some bloods and the vet has warned me to be prepared for the worst, keep your fingers crossed but she is 9½ - of course I'll keep you posted.

So back to work as I eagerly await the arrival of the whirlwind that is called Debbie.

Alls good in the Bulldog Hood

2010-06-30T16:39:00.002+01:00

Depite it being another roasting hot day, I did actually manage to spend the entire day where I should be. No word from my beloved daughter as to the outcome of yesterdays debarcle and I'm sure she won't appreciate the fact that I had to work late last night and start extra early this morning to make up the time spent yesterday trying to sort out her love life. I've actually got a weekend away coming up though which I'm starting to get quite excited about. If you remember the fun my friend Debbie and I had at Camber Sands scooter rally last year, well we're doing it again and this time I get to stay out overnight. Debbie lands on me tomorrow afternoon and she's already warned me that she has 10 pairs of shoes in her suitcase - my goodness, I don't even OWN 10 pairs of shoes. It means, however, that I miss the breed council meeting - the first time in three years, do you think I'll be in trouble?

can I come out now?

2010-06-29T22:53:00.001+01:00

Excuse the blank post, I was trying to be clever and write this post via the blackberry but it didn't work LOL. The intention for today was to get the adoption packs out and up to date but my daughters "domestic" issue came to head this morning so I was taken out the office for the rest of the day. I've sat in the kitchen working through the paperwork for the past few hours trying to make up for lost time but I really need to go to bed now and abandon the paperwork and trade it in for some sleep - night all

The Wicked Witch of the West is Meeeeelllllllllltttttttttttiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnggggggggggg

2010-06-28T14:07:00.004+01:00

The office thermometer is registering 35 degrees! It's cooler outside than it is in here and it's the usual Monday morning mayhem. It's not uncommon for me to continue to process orders whilst talking on the phone, but a call this morning stopped me dead in my tracks - someones bulldog died suddenly on Saturday and she just didn't know how to cope, we offer bereavement counselling because we understand what it's like when everyone around you is trying to convince you it was "just a dog". The sudden death wasn't even anything to do with the heat, he was just sick but the poor little mite choked, you can imagine how much they are beating themselves up - what if we'd done this, what if we'd done that but at the end of the day when it's time it's time. The best piece of advice I was ever given is one that I regularly pass on - and that is to remember that there was entire lifetime ahead of that last awful day - try not to dwell on the end but celebrate the life, remember all the things that made you laugh - there's plenty of them and I bet that every now and again, you'll hear the tippy tap of the toe nails on the laminate or catch a glimpse of him sneaking onto the sofa out the corner of your eye - they never really leave us but it is so so hard to let go and accept what happened without the awful need to put the clock back just to that moment and try and do things differently. Just for those few minutes it didn't matter how uncomfortable I was as I really do feel like I'm melting and sometimes I wonder how I manage to come off the phone and carry on processing the orders like it never happened knowing that they put the phone down and the awful pain is still there. Hug your bulldog ....

Top of the morning to you

2010-06-25T11:29:00.002+01:00

According to the Pedigree Adoption Drive, 107000 dogs are abandoned each year, here at Bulldog Rescue we see approximately 150 a year, in reality that's only 0.14% of the total number but it's still an awful lot. As the Summer holidays approach we can start to think about things slowing down a little for us, we seem to see a pattern come the beginning of the Summer holidays - an inital rush of people who give up their dogs because they are going on holiday and now can't get them into boarding kennels, then it slows down. We guess because the kids are home and the weather is nice so looking after a dog becomes easier. However, come September things will rise quickly again - the kids are back at school and it's not so easy to keep the dog outside. It'll be October before many of these dogs start to arrive with skin conditions and neglect issues so we really do make the most of our Summer!!! and as I love my garden it works well - for me anyway.
As promised, Reggie's Den has had it's stock take and we have lots of offers - go to the web site at www.reggies-den.co.uk and see if there's anything on offer that you could make use of - we've also now got a face book page so join up to that for exclusive offers, discounts and news!
Enjoy the day, many of the dogs in the kennels are shortlisted for homes so lets hope they have a great Summer too!

Hold on to your sun hats

2010-06-24T10:43:00.003+01:00

If the weather forcast is right for a change it's set to get much hotter. I'm sure I was a bulldog in a past life because I really suffer in this heat. This morning I was up bright and early collecting the Reggies Den delivery, at last I hear you all say as I know there are a handful of customers still waiting for stuff that we hadn't realised we sold out of, but as a reward for your patience I've listed a number of things on Special Offer, these are mainly overstocks so it's first come first served, but feel free to browse the den and see if there's anything you usually buy that's cheaper!

AS THE SUN WOULD SAY ... WHAT A SCORCHER

2010-06-22T14:23:00.003+01:00

I'm sure there's no need to remind you about the dangers of bulldogs and heat, but just in case here's a reminder - be sure to read it, print it off and stick it to the front of your fridge.
I've spent the last 2 days sweating my bits off stock taking in Reggie's Den - after sending stock out for the Bulldog Day it's put the figures in the computer into chaos - instead of the computer saying no, it's Jason who goes to fill an order only to find there's none left. It's all up todate now so if you've been waiting an unusually long time for something theres new stock expected at the end of this week. Theres even a few overstocks so watch the web site for some special offers!!!
The sad news came in yesterday that the epileptic bulldog abanonded in the vets in Lancashire, who Georgia's spent all weekend trying to railroad down to our epilepsy expert in Newhaven has had to be put to sleep as the vet felt he had a brain tumour. I'm sure it's for the best and the long journey would have been very hard for him, but sad all the same that he had no one for him at the end except the vet who's been looking after him for the past 2 weeks who I know had become very attached to him.

Soltice Blessings

2010-06-21T10:24:00.003+01:00

Well the intention this morning was to watch the sun rise. Usually I go to St Annes Hill which is local to me but I did intend to spend this mornings sunrise in the garden. Thanks to Dawn, Luci, Peter and Beverly I managed to get the whole week end gardening which was very gradifying, but meant that I slept straight through the 4.30am alarm!!! Today is the longest day so make the most of it, from now on the nights start drawing in again - how depressing!

I'll leave you with some pics of the garden

Helllloooooooooooooooooooo is there anybody there?

2010-06-18T11:24:00.002+01:00

Just realised that's it's been a few months since the last Blog entry - do you know I actually get complaints when it's not updated LOL. The scooter ride out went really well - over 100 scooters parked on my front grass, thankfully not a single complaint and we had plenty of donated food, nappy sacks, washing powder and of course money - a big thank you to all that took part
Both bulldog days went well too, although these events are independant of Bulldog Rescue we get the profit so it goes without saying that our thanks goes out to Vicky and her team for two very successful educational days.
We are now gearing up to launch the 2011 calendar competition so be sure to keep an eye on the web site for details.
Oh and of course the 4th September - keep that day free as it's the annual picnic on that day and we all know how much you love that.
I'll be back soon (I promise)

Here comes the sun ......?

2010-04-15T14:11:00.005+01:00

This weather is just perfect for me, it's not too hot but the sun really makes you feel better. My little blue tit spent several days taking twigs and moss and stuff into her little house but I've not seen her for a couple of days so I guess she's sat on an egg now - I'm so tempted to take a peek but I know I can't upset her if she is in there.

For the past few months we've been running a Tail Survey on our web site, trying to ascertain what the most common bulldog tail shape is, especially after the KC refused to upgrade the tail description in the breed standard to include anything other than a straight tail as highly undesirable. The results were quite suprising with straight tails coming in at 40% and screw tails as 42%. You can see the full results here.

I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to break to my neighbours that there's a planned scooter ride out in aid of Bulldog Rescue on the 9th May planned to finish here. Dizzy was founder member and number one of the Midhurst Detours scooter club back in the early 80s up until he broke his back on his scooter on the M11 in 1984, the club decided to honour the work he now does with a fund raising ride out, so do I keep quiet and make out I never expected so many or do I tell them LOL. Info about the ride out here

There's plenty of other fund raising events planned so be sure to check out the fund raising page on the web site.

We had a lovely little girl come in from Battersea yesterday, she's only got one eye and has the most adorable personality, apparently she's a stray but she's so beautiful that's really hard to beleive. I can't see it being long before she's in a new home ....

Gardens and Spring

2010-04-09T14:03:00.003+01:00

The equinox a few weeks back signed in the beginning of Spring and that of course brings the ground to life as the wheel clicks another notch. I put a bird box up outside my bedroom window and was delighted to see last week that it has an occupant who is very busy building her nest. It's going to be exciting to watch how it develops. And no lude comments please - I've already had those on facebook ;o)

Things are quite peaceful in rescue at present. We've just year ended and I was horrified to note that the number of dogs through has increased by almost 40 dogs on last year, I can't see things getting any easier now either with many of them proving difficult to rehome as people want a cheap dog with no problems - sadly many of them are older and come with problems. If you can help any of our dogs out please visit www.bulldogrescue.co.uk/homes_needed.htm but please dont just apply for the youngers - the oldies need love too!

Department Stores and Rain

2010-03-31T12:20:00.002+01:00

We've had so much fun here this morning (sorry if you couldn't get through on the phone, I was having too much fun). Debenhams, the World famous department store chose Bulldog Rescue as the location to get some shots of bulldogs for their forthcoming fashion catalogue. In return for a donation they were given free range to photograph pretty much any dog they wanted - an hour later we were all soaking wet but the shots are hillarious. Every single one of Hilda is her running at the camera, Maggie proper posed from every direction without even being asked. Tupan was a real pro - posing just how they wanted him - although Maddison thought it was a porn shoot and just rolled onto her back and refused to get up. Poppy, bless her - posed her little heart out and the guy was really pleased with her modelling skills, so much so we went back for more but he'd filled his card up. I'll post the photos as soon as I get them as they promised to send some through for me and watch out for them when the store start promotiing their Summer fashion collection.

An ode to those that run breed rescues ...

2010-03-16T15:45:00.002Z

Tania has a job to do
It pays the mortgage
Keeps the dogs in food
Only when her work is done
Can she help the bulldogs
That become abandoned

Tania has a house to keep
The clothes to wash
The floors to sweep
Only when the housework’s done
Can she help the bulldogs
That become abandoned

Tania has a family to care for
Kids to feed
A hubby to adore
But only when their needs are done
Can she help the bulldogs
That become abandoned

Tania has a garden to tend
The grass to mow
The fence to mend
Only when the garden’s done
Can she help the bulldogs
That become abandoned

So do I, I hear you say
We have jobs
And bills to pay
But I bet you finish work at 5
And I bet your home and garden thrive

Because round here the place is a hovel
For time for chores I have to grovel
Because none of the important stuff gets done
We’re too busy helping bulldogs
That become abandoned

So before you cry “I can’t get through”
Remember …
Tania has a job to do

LIFE FROM A WINDOW ...

2010-03-10T11:45:00.002Z

... I'm just taking in the view.
Life from a window - Observing everything around you ....

First up, hoooooooooooge sorrys for the lack of blog recently. I don't mind admitting that recently it's been hard to cope and there's been a couple of occassions when I've almost given up and decided I wanted my life back. Last night I sat and caught up on the huge pile of adoption packs that were waiting to be sent out and when I'd finally finished I realised why things have been so frantic - we usually rehome about 120 bulldogs a year, last year that rose to 126 - this year we have already rehomed 156 bulldogs and there's still 3 weeks left until the end of our accounting year!!!!! I feel a bit better knowing that I'm not actually having a real nervous breakdown after all - just more people needing rid of their bulldogs, and it's only going to get worse if the government scheme to insist that all dogs are insured comes into play - See: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/162264/All-dogs-to-be-insured-by-law/ because most people simply cannot afford the premiums - faced with the option of prosecution or dumping the dog I think we can all see how most people will react. I'm still hankering for a revamp on the licence system, and I know I've banged on about this for a long time now, but we need to make it harder to get a dog in the first place - not make it harder to keep one.

Get ready for the Bulldog Rescue Fund Raising Extravaganza

2010-02-17T15:44:00.005Z

It was during a fairly boring trustee meeting that our Chairman Vicky had the bright idea of doing something for St Georges Day. During the discussion that followed we came up with the idea of asking members of the public to hold a selection of fund raising events across the UK all on St Georges Day. Within 24 hours the idea had taken shape and the Bulldog Rescue Awareness Day was born.
If you want to join in then get your thinking cap on and come up with a fun fund raising idea. All you have to do then is just go to http://www.bulldogrescue.co.uk/stgeorgesday.htm and register your event. Can't think of anything to do? then just make a donation, either on the Just Giving button or by PayPal - either way, lets celebrate St Georges Day in true British style alongside our British Bulldogs!

Vets - a dogs friend? Not so much anymore

2010-02-09T12:22:00.004Z

When the call came in late one evening that a dog we had rehomed was laying on the floor shaking with a very bloated abdomen, my advice was of course "get to the vet now". Bloat can become gastric torsion very quickly and I think that most people are now aware that once that occurs your window for treatment is very slim. As seems to be the case with most vet surgeries these days, an out of hours "emergency" service had to be used and the dog was immediately rushed in for treatment. The vet on call subsequently told the owners that it was not (thankfully) a gastric torsion but that the dog had a large amount of undigested food trapped which had expanded and caused the abdomen to swell. They said they would keep him over night, give liquid paraffin and try and encourage the dog to pass the food. The following morning the dog was still a bit swollen and the owners were told that in order to prevent the gastric torsion from reoccurring they would need to undertake a £2,000 operation!!! Hang on a minute ... didn't they say it wasn't a gastric torsion? so where did the £2,000 operation come from???? Of course these people don't have a spare 2 grand just laying around ready to give to someone who thinks it would be a good idea to perform surgery for a condition that hadn't occurred? If they can't afford it does the dog get sent back poorly or do they decide to put the dog to sleep because they simply don't have the money to make him well?
These kind of stories are not uncommon sadly, a dog rehomed with dry eye was duly taken to the vet for a check up as we ask them to do, only to be told that his eyes would cost them over £100 per treatment. Where on earth did that figure come from? Dry eye simply needs the eyes keeping clean and artificial tears applying daily (you can pick that cream up in the chemist for £6 a tube), in the worse cases where ulceration of the eye has occurred the treatment will be slightly more expensive but £100 a go? Again, this kind of attitude simply cause people to send their dog back to us because they just can't afford the treatment. Thankfully in this case we were able to reassure the new owners, and I worry that some of these vets try and make as much out of these situations as they can - very unfair to the dog who could find himself back listed for adoption when he had a perfectly good home first time around who was scared stupid by the vet.
Not so long ago we had to help a couple out who's vet would only allow them to take 2 antibiotics a day paid for on collection because they couldn't afford to pay the vet bill in one go. I know of vets who have refused treatment because the owners didn't have the money to pay for it? When did the veterinary profession stop caring for animals and start putting money first? If it's an offence to withhold veterinary treatment as a pet owner, where does the law stand if it's the vet that's withholding treatment based on the fact that they might not get paid.
I'd love to hear your experiences on this subject!

Life, love and photographers

2010-01-28T14:45:00.002Z

So far this year has eased me in nice and gently to the life of rescue, we've caught up reasonably well with the Christmas back log and many of the dogs are now moving on nicely into their new homes. The recent snow slowed things down considerably as no one could move - isn't this country really crap at coping with extreme weather LOL.
Hildas backside is healing nicely - she really has not noticed that someone knicked her tail, the stitches are due to come out next week and we've had no problems with the wound opening up or becoming infected, all we need now is for the fur to grow back over and the little stump the vet made out of fat and it will look like the tail she originally had.
We've had a house guest for most of this week, Jason's friend Kira is staying and bearing in mind she works at a kennels and lives with several bulldogs of her own, she's been really useful to have around the house. The dogs love her and she came with me this afternoon to the local Pets At Home who have granted us £1000.00. The local paper wanted to photograph the hand over of the cheque - I'll post a copy of it here as soon as it's printed in next weeks edition.
Other than that life is the same old round of work, dogs, phone calls and sleep.
Finally, for all those that think the persistent bulldog bashing is justified, you might want to watch this ............ Hillplace Bulldogs showing the world that well bred bulldogs can do everything expected of any dog - enjoy

Positive thoughts needed ....

2010-01-18T10:19:00.002Z

Just left Hilda at the vets, my poor baby girl is having her tail amputated this morning so we need all the positive vibes we can get please. Will post later and let you know how she is

The Bateman Report

2010-01-14T10:31:00.005Z

I did ask in a previous blog for breeders opinions of this report but I think it got lost in the snow. The Sky news coverage showing Maria and Ralphs beautiful bulldogs having a great time in the snow is just fantastic but the serious side of this is will it work? I really would love to know what breeders think of the report and the proposals that will be made as a result of it. From a welfare point of view it can only be a good thing but your comments are more than welcome.

See the Hillplace gang having fun at http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/video/Dog-Breeders-Face-Changes-To-The-Way-They-Operate-After-Mistreatment-Allegations/Video/201001215522303?lpos=video_Article_Related_Content_Region_1&lid=VIDEO_15522303_Dog_Breeders_Face_Changes_To_The_Way_They_Operate_After_Mistreatment_Allegations
The full report can be found here http://dogbreedinginquiry.com/publication-of-the-inquiry-report/
Enjoy ...

OK, we are so bored of this now

2010-01-11T11:17:00.004Z

With everything still frozen solid and under a ton of snow, the bulldogs and I had very little choice but to just give in and build a snowman. Despite Denis thinking it was a toilet, Charlie thinking that everyone that went near it whilst I was building it needed to be told off we did actually manage to get one built. Enjoy our pathetic efforts ...

News over the weekend that the Beckhams are already fed up with their bulldog and have given it away to Gordon Ramsay came as no suprise, if ever there was proof that thought needs to go into buying a dog they've just provided it. Full story here: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/2801148/David-Beckham-palms-off-pet-dog-to-pal-Gordon-Ramsay.html

Global warming? My ar

2010-01-08T10:53:00.003Z

I hope you are having fun in the snow, we certainly are not - no kennel help, no water in the kennel and my big fear is that the power is going to go out because night time temperatures are currently running at anything between -5 and -12 with forecasts to go even colder. It does seem daft that the entire country grinds to a halt but to be fair what else can we do? We can't even get the car off the drive way as it's buried in at least a foot of snow which is now frozen solid - there's abandoned cars all up the lane which is nothing short of an ice rink at the moment as no one bothers to grit up here but there's no refuse collections either because the truck simply can't get here so things are starting to get desperate LOL. This is the view from our living room looking towards the south downs - note the impressive icicles LOL

News in Our Dogs this morning that breeding rules are to be tightened with the introduction of a registration scheme. Done correctly this will certainly (hopefully) make my life a little easier, but I'm really interested to hear what breeders think - let me know please

Look familiar???

2010-01-06T12:43:00.005Z

We've got about 10 inches of snow at least here this morning, Hilda thinks snowball fights are the best

But I almost had to dig the kennel out to get in LOL

It sure does look pretty in the garden though

Happy 2010

2010-01-06T10:33:00.002Z

I actually managed to get a whole week of work, but it wasn't without it's price. Just as I finished at 4pm on the 23rd December and headed into the bedroom to finish the wrapping the mobile went off, a dogs home had a dog that wasn't coping with the kennels and could we take it before Christmas to prevent him from being put to sleep. A railroad was set up to move him to the closest available foster space and all was well until the second section of the railroad rang to say "this isn't a bulldog". I have no idea what he was, some kind of Labrador, beagle, boxer cross - but most definitely not a bulldog. The dogs home had since closed so we agreed to continue with the railroad and foster him as planned and sort it out after Christmas, which was fine until he started becoming aggressive. Needless to say the foster home could no longer help and by 8pm Christmas eve I was sat in an emergency vets helping to send him to the bridge. Poor wee man had no idea what was going on, the kennel was not an option as he we knew he wouldn't cope with that and sending him back would have had him put to sleep anyway so we figured we'd save him any more stress and just do it. He was a very very old boy and I did my very best to make his last moments as peaceful as possible but not a great way to start the festive season I can tell you.

I actually managed to spend the entire week reading a book (I never get time to read a book) but come new years eve and 12am the skies exploded with fireworks and all the dogs here (despite them all being very heavily dosed up on calming solution) all began to try and dig their way out of their kennels, in the house Maggie was doing her best to catch them and Hilda was joining in the game of lets chase the ...... what actually are we chasing??? Daisy, my beautiful black beauty was huddled in a corner looking absolutely terrified!

Come the morning Daisy was quiet and her breathing was very huffy, she's not a great breather and stress can set it off, she didn't want to eat so spent the day under the kitchen table keeping out of everyone's way. That night she was really sick but was refusing to move out of her corner, so I made her comfortable, sat with her until she fell asleep and went to bed about 1.30am.

I was almost too afraid to check on her come the morning but sadly she was really really sick by the next day. I think she'd gone blind so I rushed her to the vets where blood test revealed advanced kidney failure. I'd waited 10 years for her but putting her to sleep was the only option, she made my dreams come true after seeing a black bulldog in American when I went out for the Bulldog Nationals in 1998. She has now joined the others in the graveyard at the bottom of the garden, rest in peace my sweetheart - I sure do miss you.

News that the Beckhams have got a bulldog raised some eyebrows in the press. Good friend of the bulldog (not) journalist Jemima Harrison wrote a scathing article in the Times: (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1239792/Why-DID-Victoria-Beckham-buy-David-bulldog-Christmas.html) which is once again factually incorrect - but my personal worry is that the world and his wife will now go out and get a bulldog so they can be like Posh and Becks. Guess who'll be picking up that mess in 18 months time?? Please don't go and buy a bulldog just because they've got one, they won't keep it and should they ever come back to the UK the poor soul will be discarded like a used toy.

Anyway, hope 2010 brings you all everything you need and try not to get stuck in the snow, we've got about 15 inches of the stuff this morning!!

LET IT SNOW ... LET IT SNOW ... LET IT SNOW ...

2009-12-18T15:37:00.012Z

When this is the sight that greets you first thing in the morning what can you do?

The hose pipe is frozen

You can't see the poop let alone pick it up

There's only one thing for it ....

HAVE FUN ............................

Blossom and Mercedez

Charlie

Dennis

Dennis and Charlie

Harry, Blossom and Charlie

Harry, Charlie and Mo

Mo and Charlie

Mo, Dennis and Harry

Well, it beats scrubbing kennels any day!

Santa does less miles ...

2009-12-14T10:18:00.002Z

We left here yesterday morning, the intentions were - drive to Kent and deliver a dog to her new home, up to Essex to introduce a dog to his potential new home, back to Kent to collect a dog and through to Sussex to take her straight to her new home. 250 miles later the entire day was a complete and utter waste of diesel, time, and a Christmas shopping moment lost forever.
The first dog was delivered safe and sound, all was fine and another dog happily settled in a new home before Christmas. Then we contacted the Essex drop to inform them we'd be 45 minutes, only to be told they'd got another dog from another source that morning and they were sorry but they didn't want us to come up after all. So down to Kent to collect the next dog and a phone call to her new home to say we'd be there within an hour and a half, to be told they'd had a hospital appointment come through just after Christmas so could no longer take a dog before the new year. So leaving here intending to deliver 3 dogs saw 2 come back with us. Then this morning the call we dreaded, the dog that had been delivered safe and sound looked like it wasn't going to work out after all ....... Ho Ho Ho Hum

Christmas is on it's way - just ask a dog rescuer!

2009-12-01T10:59:00.002Z

Saturday was another long day, we had already decided to go to the Bulldog of the Year show and collect 2 dogs on the way back. One of the dogs we were due to collect pulled out as thankfully they decided that they could keep him afterall, but whilst at the show a call came in from someone who needed their dog picking up as soon as possible so we decided to wait for the lunch break, as we had an item in the auction, and then head off to Staines and then round to Kent as originally planned. The morning show took longer than anticipated so by the time lunch was over and the auction was done it was gone 3pm. However, the auction items which we had donated which consisted of 5 Our Dogs and Dog World annuals dating from 1949 through to 1967 raised a fabulous £35.00 for the rescue, thank you to everyone that placed bids on those items. Some of the bulldog adverts inside are very amusing. It was very late by the time we got back here with two very bewildered bulldogs, both of which are now settled in their kennel awaiting their intake assessments. There are still a large number of bulldogs waiting for homes and with Christmas fast approaching it's only going to get worse so if you can help us in any way please do as in the words of that very well known SuperStore - every little helps ....

THE OLD MAN IS SNORING ....

2009-11-25T16:20:00.002Z

Sorry, couldn't think of anything to put as a heading, but it's raining and pouring so that's the first thing that came into my head. To be honest rescue is almost at crisis point, there are now 40 dogs in the system which is the most we've ever had since I took over 8 years ago. As we do our best to work our way through them, sort the homechecks and make sure the home we've picked is the right one, today one of the owners decided that now he had the details of the new family for his dog it was a good time to tell us he'd rehomed him themselves! It's not even as if we don't keep the families informed of the progress as they get a letter to tell them we have selected a home and are just waiting on a homecheck but I guess people can't wait, with this many dogs in the system we're bound to be much much slower than we would like to be as fitting it all around a day job can prove to be frustrating at times. But we'll keep plodding along and over the course of the next few days I need to find space for 3 (maybe 4) new arrivals when all the kennels are full!
Tonight is going to be particularly difficult as we have been called out to collect a dog from an old lady who's due to move into a home on Friday. The poor lady is now senile and doesn't fully understand why we need to come and take her dog away, with the help of her family we've left it as late in the day as we can get away with and tomorrow the house will be packed up ready for her to move on Friday morning, let hope she copes ok with what is going to be a very upsetting time for her.

Oh what fun we had ....

2009-11-19T17:19:00.003Z

The last few days have been a lot of fun, as you know the shed (that we are grandly calling a kitchen) was erected at the weekend and on Tuesday the washing maching and tumble dryer was installed inside it thanks to Reggie's fabulous plumbing work. First thing Wednesday morning, Sue and I were very excited at using the new facilities (yes we really are that sad) and on the second load of washing we suddendly reaslised that the kennel area was slowly flooding. A friend of ours who's trade is ground works just happened to have popped by for coffee - so that was his afternoon gone because the underground pipe that was taking the waste water decided it didn't like suddendly having to do so much work and had completely disintergrated underground! We had our own little natural spring there for a while (well if you don't count the soap suds). As it turned out the washing machine wasn't even supposed to be emptying into that drain so we now have a lovely ellaborate peice of pipe work going into the man hole - that was after driving around for 2 hours yesterday afternoon trying to find the right sized pipes as no one seemed to stock the ones Reg had used.

ROLE OF HONOUR:

Shed - thanks to Peter and Beverly
Plumbing/electrics - thanks to Reg
Washing Machine - puchased from the Heart Foundation charity shop, Fareham
Tumble Dryer - thanks to the Heart Foundation charity shop, Fareham
Emergency drain works - thanks to Mark
Oh what fun .......................

I'm still here!

2009-11-16T13:12:00.002Z

Yes I'm still alive, thank you to all those that actually took the time to ask LOL. Thanks also to all the people that helped out last week in the kennels whilst I was otherwise buried under paperwork, it's so nice to know theres people there when needed!
The weekend was spent putting up the new laundry shed that Peter and Beverly have donated, there's a second hand washing machine and tumble dryer on it's way so the bedding crisis is now officially over!

Knock on ...

2009-11-09T12:13:00.002Z

My extended time off has obviously had a huge knock on effect with just about everything, customers complaining they've had to wait so long for the orders and almost 30 bulldogs looking for new homes!! I don't think we've ever ever had so many in the system at any one time. I've got help in the kennel every day this week, so I can get a really good run on the office stuff. Lets hope that life has nothing left to throw at me because I don't think "my dog died" is an acceptable reason for not sending the VAT return in on time!!!!!