ENGLISH BULLDOGS

Most people know a bulldog when they see one, even if there are no bulls anywhere around.  That's because bulldogs have those smooshed-up faces and all those wrinkles that make them look different from most other dogs.  There are actually several kinds of bulldogs besides the English Bulldog, like for example the American Bulldog, Olde English Bulldogge, and the French Bulldog.  But I am only going to talk about the English Bulldog today.

Bulldogs are very stocky dogs, with wide shoulders and a wide head.  They have thick folds of skin on their brows, and over their muzzles they have another fold of skin called a "rope."  The skin under the neck is loose, and their lips are droopy.  I think a bulldog looks like it was left in the oven too long, and its face totally melted.  Either that or it ran into a brick wall, and its face got all scrunched up.  Some people really like this look in a dog, but frankly, I think basenjis are much cuter!

The coat color of a bulldog can be red, fawn, white, brindle, or piebald.  Their hair is short and sleek, and it doesn't need much grooming.  A male bulldog usually weighs 55-60 pounds, and a female weighs about 45 pounds.  The bulldog's tail is short and curled, and that happens naturally, so the tail doesn't have to be docked.

If you look at a bulldog, you might think it is a grumpy dog, but this is not true.  Most bulldogs are friendly and gentle, and they make good family pets.  They are protective and tolerant of children.  And since they don't need a whole lot of exercise, they can live in an apartment.  But it's not healthy for them to get overweight, which means they shouldn't just sit around and watch TV all day.

Because of their short faces, bulldogs don't do well in the heat, and they need someplace shady or air-conditioned to hang out on a hot day.  They especially like to lie on a nice, cool floor.  Those short faces also make them snort and breathe heavily.  Besides which, they snore loudly and they are "the most relentless farters in the canine world."

British people first started to think of bulldogs as a particular breed of dog back in 1500 or maybe even earlier.  But they spelled the name of the dog Bondogge or Bolddogge, probably because everybody spelled words in all sorts of weird ways in those days.  Anyway, the dogs were used in the sport of bull baiting, so that's why they were called "bulldogs."

Bull baiting was a mean and nasty sport, where a bull was tied up, and dogs tried to grab it by the nose and pin it to the ground.  During this process, the bull usually gored or tossed or kicked several dogs, and some of the dogs died.  People bet money on the dogs, and they began breeding bulldogs that were heavier and meaner and had stronger jaws.  Bull baiting and the similar "sport" of bear baiting got to the peak of their popularity in England in the mid-1800s.  But then in 1835, the Cruelty to Animals Act was passed, and it made these activities illegal.  After that, there was no reason to keep breeding fighting bulldogs in England, but emigrants to America took the dogs with them and used them on farms to catch or corner a bull long enough to get a rope around its neck.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, people started trying to make the bulldog gentler, so that it could be a pet.  Also they crossed bulldogs with pugs, and after a while, the breed ended up being shorter and wider and having a smooshed face.  The modern English Bulldog does not have the right kind of jaw shape to grab a bull's nose and hang on.  Also it couldn't breathe well enough to do all the running it would need to do while fighting a bull.

English bulldogs are popular school mascots.
This is Handsome Dan, the original Yale mascot.

The American Bulldog, since it kept on being a working dog longer than the English Bulldog, has a longer muzzle and is less stocky.  But like I told you, I am not going to talk about that breed today.

English Bulldogs live about 7-11 years.  Some of the health issues they might have are heart problems, cancer, allergies, cherry eye, hip dysplasia, and luxating patellas.  More than 80% of bulldog litters are delivered by Cesarean section because of how big the puppies' heads are.  The folds on the bulldog's face need to be cleaned every day to make sure there are no infections there.

Well, that's all I know to tell you about English Bulldogs.  Someday maybe I will tell you about some other kind of bulldog.

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SONNET FOR A MUTT, by Piper's Mom

Shall I compare thee to a rottweiler?

It’s hard to guess while thou art still so young.

Thou hast brown feet and mostly blackish fur,

And two or three black spots upon thy tongue.

Perhaps thou com’st instead from collie stock,

With ancestors who herded woolly sheep,

And now thou dream’st of chasing thine own flock,

With clever nips and barks, while thou dost sleep.

Or German shepherd thou mayest be, in part,

A dog that’s smart and suitable to train

For search-and-rescue or the special art

Of tracking criminals through snow and rain.

But all that truly matters, in the end,

Is that thou art my Dog, my dearest Friend!

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FOUR PRESIDENTS AND THEIR DOGS (or lack of dogs)

Mom read a book recently about President James A. Garfield and how he got assassinated.  The name of this book is Destiny of the Republic, and it was written by Candice Millard.  Mom said I should tell everybody that this is a very good book, and she thinks lots of people should read it.

A nice picture of the Garfield family,
but where is the dog?

President Garfield had the second-shortest presidency of all, after William Henry Harrison.  President Harrison forgot to wear a hat to his inauguration, and he caught pneumonia and died after only 32 days in office.  But that's not what happened to President Garfield.  Instead, President Garfield got shot in the back by a mostly insane man named Charles Guiteau, and he finally died 10 weeks later because of infection caused by doctors sticking their fingers into his wound to try to find the bullet.  But you can read all about this in the book I mentioned before.

President Garfield getting shot in the back

Anyway, President Garfield was a very smart man with a good sense of humor, and he didn't want the same things that the Congress wanted, so they called him a Mugwump.  Also, he vetoed a whole bunch of bills, and he even named his dog Veto.  Sadly, I can't find any pictures of Veto, so we will just have to imagine what he or she looked like.

At least we know that President Garfield was an excellent person because he had a dog, and he might have made a great president who was remembered in history, except for the little problem of his getting shot and dying.  Back in those days, the presidents didn't have any Secret Service people to guard them and keep them safe, even after President Lincoln got shot.  So in my opinion, President Garfield should have taken his dog Veto with him everywhere to keep him safe and bite any assassins in the butt.

After President Garfield died, Vice-President Chester Arthur became the president.  Everybody was worried because Mr. Arthur had done some bad stuff while he was the Collector of the Port of New York. He was also in cahoots with some of President Garfield's enemies.  But people were shocked when President Arthur turned out to be a pretty good guy after all.  For one thing, he got the Civil Service Reform Act passed that President Garfield had wanted.  This was a law that said government jobs should be given to people who actually knew how to do them, and not as a reward to people who happened to be good buddies with some politician.

A journalist named Alexander McClure wrote, "No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted as Chester Alan Arthur, and no one ever retired . . . more generally respected, alike by political friend and foe."  The unfortunate thing about President Arthur is that we don't know whether he ever owned any dogs or not.  He had a kidney disease, and he didn't feel like trying very hard to get nominated to run for another term.  So after serving his one term, he retired.  He only lived about three more years after that, and the day before he died, he had all his personal papers burned.

The next president after President Arthur was Grover Cleveland.  It turns out that his first name was Stephen, but I guess he never went by that name, only by Grover.  Mr. Cleveland was the only Democrat to be elected president during the period from 1860 to 1912.  All the others were Republicans.  This does not seem very fair, but that's the way it happened.

The wedding of Grover Cleveland
and Frances Folsom

President Cleveland was first elected in 1884.  He was a bachelor, so his sister moved to the White House and became his hostess for two years.  Then the president got married, in a great big, fancy wedding, to a woman named Frances Folsom.  Miss Folsom was only 21 years old at that time, and President Cleveland was 49.  This meant that he was 27 years older than she was, but the American people didn't mind this.  They liked their new First Lady, who was beautiful and who had a warm and friendly personality.

Now I will tell you something to prove how much people liked Miss Folsom, which is that lots of little girls were getting named "Frances" about that time.  Mom told me that one of her grandmothers was named Frances Folsom Brown, and it's pretty clear where that name came from because the name "Folsom" is not in Mom's family anywhere.  Mom's grandma was called "Fanny" by her friends and family, and Mrs. Cleveland was called "Frank."

Okay, but here's the important thing.  Mrs. Cleveland really loved all kinds of animals.  And as soon as this news got out, a man from Milwaukee sent her a little 9-month-old poodle.  Except that it might have been a Pekingese.  It was described as the smallest "pug dog" in the U.S., since it only weighed a pound and a half.  So who knows what it was, exactly?  I tried to find a picture of this little dog, but all I could find was pictures of Mrs. Cleveland wearing very fashionable dresses, which seems to be something she liked to do.  I think she could have just held her little dog while she was posing for photos in her fancy dresses, but maybe she didn't want to get dog hair on her clothes.

The Clevelands had some other dogs, besides having five children.  They had one dog that was probably a dalmatian, and then there is this picture of the president with his son Richard and a dog whose name is not known.  To me, this dog looks like some kind of spaniel, so I guess the dalmatian was a different dog.  Either that or somebody thought that any dog with spots is a dalmatian.













When he ran for a second term, President Cleveland lost to Benjamin Harrison.  I already told you all about President Harrison's pets.  Then after Mr. Harrison had been the president for four years, Mr. Cleveland ran again, and he won!  So he is the only president ever to have two terms that weren't one right after the other.  And he was the only president to be counted twice, because he was both the 22nd and the 24th president of the U.S.

Okay, now I will just tell you a tiny bit about President William McKinley, who was next after President Cleveland.  He was elected in 1896, and he was the last Civil War veteran to serve as president.  There is no record that he had any dogs of his own, but there was one strange incident with a mysterious black dog that I'm going to tell you about.

The president is on the right, and the dog
is on the left.

President McKinley served one term, and then he got elected a second time in 1900.  The next year, he went to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY, and I'm sorry to say that a crazy man shot him there.  But the morning of the day when President McKinley got shot, he went to see Niagara Falls, and while he and some other people were walking around, a black dog kept following them.  Nobody knew where the dog came from or whose dog it was.

The assassination of President McKinley

Anyway, that afternoon, the president was at the Pan-American Expo, and he was shaking hands with a bunch of people, and a man came up with his hand all bandaged.  Except that there was nothing wrong with his hand.  He was just hiding a gun inside the bandage.  So when he came to President McKinley, he shot him.  The reason he gave for shooting the president was that he wanted to get rid of government.

Later on, when people remembered the black dog at Niagara Falls, they thought that the dog must have been a bad omen.  At first it seemed like President McKinley was going to get well, but after a few days, his wounds got infected, and he died.  This was another sad case of a president not being guarded from bad guys, even by a dog, and of doctors not understanding enough about germs and icky things like that.

So here are the lessons we can learn from these four presidents:
1.  Every president should have a dog.
2.  Every president needs bodyguards.
3.  Never stick your dirty fingers into a wound.

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AN UPDATE AND SOME PHOTOS

A lot of stuff has been happening here lately, and a lot of it is about us dogs and cats.  So I figured I had better tell you everything, and that way you won't be left in the dark.

Barry already wrote about how he ate some pieces of a blanket and had to spend two whole days getting IV fluids.  He's all better now, but he has to take antibiotics, and also Mom is supposed to soak his kibble and make it all soggy before he eats it.  She has to do this for a week or so.

Meanwhile, Nicky had some bloodwork done last week to find out why he is so grumpy and maybe also why he has diarrhea all the time.  When the test results came back from the lab, it turned out that the numbers that have to do with Nicky's liver were really high.  So now Dr. Griswold is going to try to discover what is making those number be so high.  She talked to a special doctor called an internist, and that doctor said to start by testing for leptospirosis, so that is what the lab is doing with the leftover blood from Nicky's first tests.  Mom was shocked to learn that the test for leptospirosis costs $129, which she had to pay for at the same time she was paying for all of Barry's x-rays and IV fluids and stuff, so after she paid for everything, she felt really broke.

Another test that Nicky is maybe going to have is a test of his poop to see if he has any unusual parasites that aren't tested for in the regular poop tests.  And he also might have an ultrasound to find out if his liver is bigger than it is supposed to be or if it has some kind of growth in it that is not supposed to be there.  Oh, and Nicky also needs to have his teeth cleaned again, and his gums are all red-looking, so that might be what is making his liver blood values high.

Well, as if all that liver stuff weren't enough, Nicky fell down and skinned up both of his back legs pretty bad on Friday.  And the way it happened was that Mom took him to Dr. Griswold's office to check the scratch on his eyeball, which he got the week before, and Dr. Griswold said it was pretty much all healed up. Then when Mom was trying to get Nicky back in the car to bring him home, he didn't want to go in there, so she was trying to get him in by lifting up his front end and then boosting his back end up.  This trick has worked pretty well in the past, but this time, somehow Nicky slipped and he fell down and scraped his hind legs on the parking lot and landed on his back.

This was a $15 tube of eye ointment for Nicky
that got chewed up somehow.  Mom thinks I did it,
but I'm not talking until I have a lawyer present! 

Mom didn't know if she could still even get him into the car, but she tried again, and finally he went in there.  Then she drove home, and after that, she realized that his legs were bleeding because greyhounds have really thin skin, so all you have to do is just barely touch them and they start bleeding.  Luckily, Mom has experience bandaging greyhound legs, including Nicky's, so she bandaged him up with some nice yellow vetwrap.  The bandages look very pretty and festive, and now we call our greyhound Mr. Nicky Yellowstockings.






Nicky still sort of lets me sleep with him, but a lot of times he growls at me, so I go find someplace else to sleep.  Mom has been putting a nice, cushy little dogbed out for me to sleep on, except that yesterday morning while Mom was feeding the cats, I ripped the bed open and started pulling out the stuffing.  I had lots of fun doing this, but Mom was Really Annoyed because she had only just mended the bed last week on her new sewing machine, but this time I tore it up so cleverly that Mom did not think it could be mended again.  So she threw it in the trash.

Okay, well, that's all the news about us dogs.  I guess I will tell you a little bit about the kittens, while I'm at it.  They are very lively and crazy, and they get into everything.  They have knocked over several of Mom's plants, which did not make Mom happy.  Also they are always trying to get into the refrigerator whenever Mom opens the door, because they have figured out that their food comes out of the refrigerator.

A few days ago, they also climbed into the dishwasher, but that was mainly because Mom let them so that she could take a picture.  I think it's totally unfair that the kittens get four meals a day, and we dogs only get two.  Even Jacen gets three meals, and the big cats only get two.  When I complained to Mom about it, she said that the kittens are little, and they need to eat more often.  Also she said that life is not fair, and I should get used to it.

Well anyway, yesterday the three little kittens went to the shelter with Mom, and they got their first vaccinations.  Also they got more de-worming, even though they are not having diarrhea anymore.  And guess what!  On December 19, they are all going to get spayed or neutered, so after that they can be adopted, and somebody else will have to put up with them!

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LOP-EARED BUNNIES

The Year of the Rabbit will be over before we know it, which is why I'd better get busy telling you about a few more kinds of rabbits.  Today I'm going to talk about bunnies with lop ears, which means that their ears hang down, kind of like a hound dog's ears.  Nobody seems to know where the word lop came from or why it means to droop.  It can also mean to chop off, but I'm not going to talk about cutting any rabbit ears off, so don't be alarmed!


It turns out that there are a bunch of different rabbit breeds that have lop ears.  Some of these rabbits are large and some are very small.  They are all pretty darned cute, and I'm guessing that they all have soft fur.  Also they are probably tasty to eat, but I am not going to talk about eating rabbits because I don't want to upset my friend Trouble, the bunny.  Or my other bunny friend, Lucky.

Okay, well, the biggest lop-eared rabbit is the French Lop, which weighs 12 pounds or more.  This breed was invented in the 19th century in France by crossing the English Lop with the Flemish Giant.  The ears of the French Lop aren't as long as the ears of an English Lop.

French Lops are good-natured and if they are socialized when they are young, they make excellent family pets.  They get along well with other species of animals, but what they like most is to have another rabbit as a companion.  This is because they are very social bunnies.

The next-biggest lop-eared rabbit is the English Lop, which can weigh as much as 10 or 11 pounds.  They have really long ears, so you have to keep them in a hutch that is big enough for them to move around without walking on their ears.

These rabbits are easy to groom because they have short fur.  They are calm and very friendly, and they can live for five years or more.

The Mini Lop is smaller, and it only grows to about 6 pounds.  This breed has a compact, muscular body.  During the shedding season, it gets a little messy, so you will need good grooming tools.  Mini Lops are usually friendly and playful.

They are also smart and can be trained to do tricks and to use the litter box.  They really like to be with their family, and they get upset when they are neglected.

The second-smallest lop-eared bunny is the American Fuzzy Lop.  This rabbit weighs between 3.5 and 4 pounds when it is full grown.  American Fuzzy Lops are active, playful, and have lots of personality.  They look a lot like Holland Lops except for being fuzzier.  Their muzzles are short and flat, sort of like the muzzle of a bulldog.

AFLs like to play with toys such as plastic balls, pine cones, pieces of soft wood, stuffed socks, or old gloves.  The breed was created by mating French Angora rabbits with Holland Lops.

The very smallest lop-eared breed is the Holland Lop, which weighs 2.5 to 3.5 pounds.  These bunnies have a thick-set, muscular body.  They have lots of energy and curiosity, and they usually love attention, but the females can sometimes be shy.

Holland Lops have a medium-length coat, so they need a little more grooming than some other types of rabbits.










And there you have it:  Piper's guide to lop-eared rabbits.  I have to admit that some of these guys seem like they would make good pets.  Of course, it would be better to have a dog or a cat, but if you can't, then a rabbit might be a good third choice.

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NATIONAL MUTT DAY, by Barry

Today is National Mutt Day, but more importantly, IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!  Yep, I'm in the double digits now -- a big 10 years old!  I think it's especially fitting that they chose December 2 to be National Mutt Day, since it's my birthday, and I am such a handsome mutt myself.

It turns out that National Mutt Day has been going on since 2005, but Mom and I only just found out about it this year.  It was started by a woman named Colleen Paige, who is an animal welfare activist.  She wanted to promote the adoption of mixed breed dogs in shelters, since sadly, they make up the biggest percentage of dogs that are euthanized.  I don't even know why anybody would want to adopt a purebred dog, when they could have a perfectly nice, incredibly cute mutt instead!  I guess I will never understand humans.

The National Mutt Day Mascot this year is a dog named Tyler.  He is 4-1/2 years old, and he is probably a mix of hound and pointer.  Tyler's mom is an Emmy-nominated actress named Charlotte Ross, who is totally gorgeous, as you can see from the photo.  I think that I should have got to be the Mascot for National Mutt Day, since it's my birthday, but Mom says there is no way she could look as pretty as Ms. Ross, so I am out of luck.

Anyway, Tyler was adopted from the South Center Los Angeles City Shelter.  He loves treats and he loves swimming.  His mom has a real swimming pool, which is something I wish we had, but Mom says we can't afford one.  Tyler also really likes to play with his human brother, Max, and with his doggy brother, Taco.







But that's enough about Tyler and National Mutt Day.  Now I want to talk about ME, because it's my birthday and I'm allowed to do that!  And the fact is that I have had a truly lousy two days, and today will probably be just as bad.  It all started Tuesday night, when my stomach felt icky, and I threw up.  Mom was annoyed because she was busy watching a TV show at the time, but she didn't really have to do any cleanup work, because I took care of it for her, and Piper helped a little, too.

Then pretty soon, I threw up again.  Mom managed to get a little of the puke away from me, and she flushed it down the toilet.  But I ate quite a bit of it.  And then I puked again while Mom was cleaning out the kittens' crate.  After that, we all went to bed, and slept until about 4:30, and then I puked one last time.

So on Wednesday morning, Mom called Dr. Patricia's office first thing to see if she should bring me in, and also if I should get any breakfast or not.  Nurse Debbie gave me an appointment for 9:30 and told Mom not to feed me, but I did manage to grab a mouthful or two of Piper's food.  Also I ate some poop out in the yard.

Dr. Patricia examined me, and she pulled some poop out of my butt, which was pretty embarrassing, and the poop had something in it that Mom thought was part of a blanket that is on the floor in her office.  Then Dr. Patricia took two x-rays, and she thought maybe I needed surgery because the "gas patterns" in my intestines showed that I had a blockage, or was about to have a blockage.  But Dr. Patricia wanted a second opinion from a specialist, so Mom and I went home to wait for the verdict.

We waited a long time, and then Mom went to the Humane Society board meeting, and we were still waiting.  It turned out that the specialty clinic was getting reorganized because they have a new owner, so nobody got around to looking at my x-rays until 7:00 or so.  And whoever finally looked at them said that I did need surgery.

But since Dr. Patricia's office was closed by then, she and Mom agreed that Mom would just watch me very closely all evening, and if I got really sick, she would take me to Mission MedVet for surgery.  But if I didn't get sick, Mom would just take me to Dr. Patricia's office first thing in the morning for more x-rays.

So what happened was that I had to spend all of yesterday at the office getting IV fluids, but I didn't have to have surgery because my x-rays looked better than they had the day before.  Another chunk of fabric came out of me, but it took a long time for Mom to figure out what it was.  Then finally, when we were getting ready for bed, she realized that it was part of a different blanket.  Of course, I have eclectic tastes, so I can't limit myself to just chewing on one particular thing.

Anyway, I have to go back to the clinic again today, which I am not happy about because it's my birthday, after all.  I don't know if I will stay all day or not, but I have to get a bunch more fluids, which is pretty boring because all you do is lie around in a cage all day with a cone on your head.  Mom says that my birthday present is that I don't have to have surgery, but that doesn't seem like a very good present, if you ask me.  I'd much rather have a nice squirrel to eat, or maybe a rabbit or a fish!

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MORE FUNNY PEOPLE NAMES

Okay, it's time to laugh at some of the names parents come up with for their babies!  Of course, sometimes girls start out with an okay name, and then they marry somebody whose last name doesn't go very well with their first name.  So then I guess it's their own fault for marrying that guy or at least for taking his name.  Unless they just like having a funny name, which maybe they do.

Anyway, here are some names with a "bird" theme:

Berry Bird


Bomber Finch


Melody Sparrow


Robin Pigeon




And some other names that have to do with nature:

Summer Butters


Brooke Frost


Cricket Ann Hill


Holli Blum


Sandy Fields


Names with "Harry" can sometimes turn out funny:

Harry Hercules


Harry Clay


Harry Wall


And so can names with "Earnest":

Earnest Lee


Earnest Eager


Ernest Neighbor


Some names are colorful:

Rosie Pinkley

Rose Gray


Ruby Green


Ruby Curry


Ruby Friend


Ruby Stone


Jane White Brown


Pearlie May Warrior



Some are angelic:

Angel Blue


Angel Geronimo Agpoon


And there are names that repeat themselves:

Lea Lee


Kelly Kelly


Adele Adell


Sharon Sharon

There are valentines:

Rocky Valentine


William Lucky Valentine




And my favorite kind of names, which are the ones that just plain sound funny:

Muzzy Goad

Let's hope this beam was not only
trued up, but also firmly attached!

Blythe Boney


Betty Bonk


Cari Mohr


Steel Trued

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