Ha Ha - that'll teach me

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

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

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?

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.

If you can't make it, then please feel free to send us a donation here

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

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

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

Ten years ago today ....

... 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.