How awesome is this?!

From the folks at Mutt Lynch Winery in Napa Valley is a bold Merlot wine that has a bulldog on the label to symbolize that it's a "big, beefy wine".

It's actually won a ton of awards, including the San Francisco Chronicle's, San Francisco International and Los Angeles Wine Gold Medals in 2005 and 2006. This is no small feat to win these kinds of awards in the very wine-snobby Napa Valley region! And you already know I'm just a sucker for anything with a bulldog on the label.They are, unfortunately, currently sold out of their 2006 vintage, but their 2007 will be released soon.

The story of the winery is lovely - a couple who shared a passion for wine AND dogs...their winery actively sponsors dog-related charities, has tasting rooms open for humans WITH their dogs (not "AND" their dogs - a drunk bulldog is not a pretty sight - but at least I can pass of my drool as his), and generally is super-open and generous with their time and appreciation for animals. Nice. Makes me feel better about getting tipsy.

No, I'm not talking about fried calamari.

I'm talking about this great toy from the folks at Ruffin' It who combine the latest, feel-good eco-friendly approach with animal instinct and a dash of good fun.

Check it out: you can take those ubiquitous plastic water bottles that you used for your 'anytime, anywhere water fountain'....and put them in this contraption that is actually tough enough for a bulldog game of rough and tumble....and then throw the bottles in the recycling bin when they are 'crunched out'. Then...repeat. Human water -> dog water -> dog toy -> recycling -> someone's picnic fork. A lovely life cycle.

We like the furry tail for added fun - and it somehow makes the super-tough ballistic nylon body more squirrel-like (although I admit my bulldogs have chewed through more of my luggage than they have through wild squirrels, so maybe there was no need for them to throw in the tail).

He'd often go to my husband's woodshop and just seek out the biggest stick he could find:

"I knew I could fit it in my mouth!"

It seems harmless enough, but we noticed that he'd not only leave a chewed up mess of bark on the floor, he'd also poop wood shards and drool profusely afterwards, most likely as a result of splintering wood. Not good.

But, he loves chewing sticks. No Nylabones. No bones. Sticks.

Now...finally - one of the strangest, but oddly logical and amazingly well rounded "chews" we've ever seen! What is old is new. Deer antlers. Yes, deer antlers. No, it's not from hunted deer. They are antlers gathered by folks on ranches after the annual, completely natural wild deer antler shedding season.

They are odorless, don't splinter, don't stain and are rich in calcium and good minerals. You can soak them in chicken broth to make them even more tasty, but we haven't even had the need. Our bulldog loves them and we can feel good about him gnawing on 'em. I'm not sure why dogs seem to obsess about them - you almost have to wonder if it sparks something primal - like, they were toothpicks for the the wolf pack after they hunted their prey on the tundra. Umm, I think our bulldog's cushy microfiber dog bed and spot on our pillow-top mattress bed is a far cry from the tundra...but, hey, he still likes those deer antlers!

A lot of pet stores and sites carry this now, but you can also read/learn more about them from a popular provider, Antlerz.

p.s. One thing we did notice is that he should gnaw on them post or pre-meal, since some of the 'minerals' seem to unsettle his stomach unless he has other food in his belly.

As young dogs, our bullies loved catching Frisbees. And it's no small feat for bulldogs - they don't have the long snouts like other dogs to nab it out of the air - they have to time it perfectly to scoop it with their underbite, or risk getting pelted in the face! Our girl, especially, was great at it - I think it was not only her athleticsm, but the extra 2" of lower jaw that helped her hook 'em!

Look at that jaw! Perfect for scooping Frisbees out of the air!

 The only bad part about the Frisbees was that she would grind up her teeth on the plastic to get it off the ground, and the shredded plastic would then ultimately have dangerous shards. Off to the store to get (yet another) new Frisbee.

Try to ignore the fact she's wearing a pink pleather motorcycle jacket...it was Halloween! It was cute! Really!

Our male was the one who finally led us to the soft Granite Gear disc that ended up being the best for both of them. He used to like chasing and catching Frisbees, too. He wasn’t particularly good it, unlike our female, but he had a good go of it. I think that he wasn’t particularly great since he tended to close his eyes when he jumped in the air. Uh, yeah, that led to a lot of ‘misses’ (but a lot of laughs).

But then something turned him off of the Frisbee altogether. And that ‘something’ was a 10 year old niece with even worse aim than our bulldog.

When we left our dogs with our favorite future veterinarian and her family before heading off on a week long trip, we armed her with all the meds, shampoos, instructions and, of course, toys, that they would need. Including their favorite Frisbees. When we returned, one of the first things we did was joyfully whip out the Frisbees, prepared to play with our dogs in the backyard. While our female showed the same enthusiasm as usual, our male practically cowered and then growled at the thing! A little confused, we called our niece and asked if anything had happened. She replied with an innocent “no”. When we asked her further, mentioning our bullie’s weird reaction to the Frisbee, she said she played with them every day. And, uh, she may have accidentally hit him in the head with it. Once. Or...uh, maybe twice. Er...maybe a few times.

Well, suffice to say, our male had lost all confidence in playing with the plastic Frisbees.

We tried getting a variety of other soft discs, but our female would tear through them in an instant. And if they had different discs, then she would, of course, try to see what our boy’s cool new thing was and a bit of a tussle would ensue. Then, finally, the Granite Gear disc. It is soft, but sturdy, with strong, flat edges so the bullies can easily carry them, tug them, and even chase after them rolling on the ground – something most soft discs can’t do.

You should have seen our boy’s face when we tossed this disc to him and he realized it wouldn’t hurt him – his eyes grew big and sparkled, and his love of flying objects returned! He still doesn’t have the best aim, but at least, now we don’t have to have great aim, either. (check out the reviews of it on this site – lots of folks write about how durable it is!)

At around age 2, our male had already had his first cherry eye (more on this later). By age three, a bop in the face by a small kid led to his second case of cherry eye. So, by the ripe old age of four, our male had already had two eye surgeries. One of his eyes always had a little bit more red scarring after the surgery. And, well, some of his behavior led us to believe that he may have long-term problems with his vision.

See, he was one of the clutziest dogs ever. This dog could walk into walls. He almost walked off the edge of a cliff ridge. Hey, aren’t dogs supposed to have some connection to nature? Some ‘primal instinct’? He couldn’t possibly not sense he was on the edge of a large pit, could he? Hey, what was that thudding noise? He often couldn’t see a toy that was right in front of him on the ground, leading him to bark at us to throw it. (“Hey, buddy, I already threw it! It’s right in front of you! On the right! No, the other right!”)

We often wondered if he just wasn’t too smart.

But then we realized that everything clutzy he did was actually related to his sight. And then we noticed his eyes seemed to be getting cloudier. We had visions (no pun intended) of taking care of the clumsiest dog in the world and him being blind from cataracts to boot. Not so easy to lug around a 65 lb. bully in a Paris Hilton-style doggie purse.

We sought out a dog opthamologist. She finally pointed out that our dog wasn’t stupid, we were. He had a case of Keratoconjunctivitis sicca or – for us simple minded folk – dry eye. If we didn’t catch it and treat it, it could have led to permanent damage of his cornea, in which case we would be toting around our big guy in a Radio Flyer wagon in no time (like this guy):

She prescribed Optimmune, which is a pretty expensive but very effective eye ointment. A tiny squeeze in each eye, morning and night, and his eyes are no longer cloudy, he is a lot happier - and our walls don’t have skid marks from his face plants.

In all seriousness, we had lots of great vets during the course of our various moves – and none of them noticed this. Sometimes seeing a specialist is really the way to go, and I would say that for smush-faced, bug-eyed dogs, good opthamologists are key.

As everyone knows, nail trimming is a regular part of grooming responsibilities. And I am sure everyone, at some point, has been nervous about clipping too deep. Our female bully had ‘white’ or ‘clear’ nails so you could more easily see the quick, but our male bully has black nails that always made clipping a more, er, nail-biting experience.

So we talked with some folks and heard that Dremels are the way to go. And that made my husband excited because, as a tool junkie, he had another justification to have this one. Dremel has made what they call ‘rotary tools’ for over 70 years – that means that they developed a device that has multiple attachments and can be used by handier folks than myself to do things like sand, grind, cut, route – and, now: groom! Now, I have to say I haven’t actually witnessed my husband use the Dremel for cutting, sanding or routing anything...but he says it can! ;)

In any event, this worked great. It was like a mini-spa day for our bully and it was super effective for getting the nail down without a lot of stress or accidental errant clips. My husband also mastered the manicure technique and rounded the edges so we didn’t immediately have snags on carpet or scratches on our legs with the rough edges usually left by nail clippers. He did stop short of a French Manicure, though, and didn’t appreciate it when I teasingly asked him for one.

We thought the folks who marketed a product called PediPaw were brilliant when we recently saw it. Duh, of course someone should have re-purposed the Dremel for the dog market – cuz anyone who didn’t know about Dremel the tool, and are ga-ga over their dogs (as we are) would definitely shell out $20 for something so effective!

So we bought a PediPaw – even though we already own a Dremel – thinking maybe it would have even more cool bells and whistles especially for dogs. Don’t ask me what I was thinking it would do – play fetch with our dog? – I totally bought into the name, and perhaps my husband agreed thinking he could finally return the Dremel to his woodshop to do all the sanding, routing and cutting that it apparently had been dying to do for the last eight years while it was in our dog cupboard... ;)

Well, the Dremel is still in the dog cupboard. And a video is pretty illustrative:

And when a video won’t suffice, I’ll refer to a review from “Dave of Oregon” on the Infomercial Product review site:

way,way underpowered

4/12/2009 - Dave of Oregon, USA writes:

Do not waste your money. It's a good idea but it falls way short of what the TV ads make you believe. Just like so many others the device would completely stop with any amount of presure. I tried not using any presure but it took 20 minutes to do ONE toenail.

Aside from Dave’s unfortunate poor spelling (once I could understand, Dave, but “presure” twice? Really?) we have to agree.

We have the old school 10volt Dremel Lithium Battery – but only use setting “2” out of settings 1-10. You can find Dremels at any tool store (Lowe’s, Sears, Amazon online) or even eBay or Craigslist for anywhere from $12-60.

from My Dog Won't Eat

We heard recommendations like “soak his paw in Epsom salts”. Well, maybe in his older age he’s mellow enough, but trying to hold a 65 lb., energetic bulldog puppy in a vat of Epsom salts led to a lot of wet hair – ours, not his. We also tried a variety of creams, medicines and sprays. While we’d used prednisone a couple of times, we hoped for a different solution, since the fewer drugs passing through his liver, the better. We had numerous vet visits and lots of ‘OFF’ demands. Finally, our salvation:

A visiting vet recommended Genesis spray – an external solution (meaning, it won't affect his intenstines, liver, nothing!) to clearing up these cysts. She doused the cyst with a couple of sprays of it and, within a day, it started to disappear. We had never seen a positive reaction to anything so quickly! We hardly get the cysts anymore, because as soon as we see it forming, we give a quick spray and it never gets to the really icky phase. It’s by prescription only, but the Medi-Vet site has a good description of it.

Poor guy – he’s not too happy here:

One of the most soothing and effective lotions we found was Resicort. It doesn’t sting, it can cool to the touch, and he would love it when we applied it. We put a small dollop on each paw pad and then put his Grip-Trex booties on until it can soak in, which it does pretty quickly. Voila. Happy bulldog. And no more empty sock drawer.

Seriously, dogs get pimples. And a common cause is bacteria in their food bowls. And imagine it with bulldogs – smushing their already-smushed muzzles into those bowls, lickin’ up every possible kibble. Our male bullie would get these oh-so-attractive cystic bumps around his nose that made me sympathize with him as only a thirty-something woman who still gets zits can.

The pimples cleared up when we religiously washed the ceramic food bowls we were using after each use. But since we then moved to ‘raw food’, it made more sense and is generally recommended, anyway, to switch to stainless steel bowls, also. There are tons to choose from – I recommend having them on a small stand to reduce neck strain and bloat. The challenge we had, though, was that a lot of food stands didn’t account for the downright determination bulldogs have to get every last kibble...meaning, the two-legged design of most feeding stands made them too easy to be flipped when your bully goes rooting around for any errant bits that fall below. It seemed the best options would be to get a stand with no space underneath (like a box with two drop-in holes on top) or, in our case, my husband whipped together a stand that accounted for this:

Yum, yum...snarf, gobble (note him already eyeballing the kibble that flipped off to the side of the bowl – “I’ll get you, my little friend”)

"Ah, there's one by my foot...(Hoovering noises) gotcha”

"Hmm, lemme check if there’s any more under here..."

Slurp, slurp (this would be right about the time the original stand we got at the store was flipping upside down)

The "backsplash" prevents kibble from falling off the backside against the wall. The three-walled design provides stability (but makes it only logical if it's set up against a wall) - and the back wall gives stability for carving out the legs so there's plenty of room for a big ol' bulldog head to root around underneath. The stand should probably be lowered about an inch for our dog's front leg height (that’s on the “honey-do” list) but it otherwise works perfectly. We haven’t seen anything like this online or in shops, so if you want free plans/templates to make your own, just contact us.

(Note: do make sure that the bumps you may be seeing on your dog’s face aren’t something else, though – PetEducation seems to have a comprehensive summary of various causes of skin irritations)

The Pooch Tube is a lightweight, rubbery toy that's great for our bullies. It is durable enough to handle their tugging, soft enough to not wreck their teeth/mouth, and is the perfect size/shape to roll for them to chase. We used to use Frisbees for the same game, but these tubes are the new favorite (the dogs’, not just ours). They float, too (but we don’t recommend them for the water, since they are just big enough to let a whole bunch of water in their mouths while they’re swimming back to shore).

While we have the video above, I was havin' a ball playing with a new camera at faster shutter speeds, so snapped some of these still pics below:

(He looks like a lunatic in that picture!!)

Oh, and, by the way, in case you were wondering what a removed 'screw tail’ looks like at a fast shutter speed...BAM! Here’s winkin’ at ya.