It’s a girl!

Let me introduce you to Zoey my english bulldog puppy.

While on my trip in Nosara Costa Rica my wife and I would see Coco a brindle puppy outside the surf shop at the end of the street from where we were staying. My wife wanted to keep him, which says a lot because my wife only allows female dogs into her life. It’s very likely that Coco was the catalyst that set everything into motion.

Once we made it back home my wife was set on me getting a puppy, and she wanted me to pick choose it. I did lots of research looking for the right girl for me, not too big, not too small, not too energetic, and not too lazy, loyal but not too clingy, all with a face that I could love forever (even after she’s all grown up). I journeyed down the internet rabbit hole in search of possibilities.

I found all the usual breeds that I already knew about, Rotties, Australian cattle dogs, French bulldogs, boxers, corgies.

Then I found some breeds I’d never heard of like the beauceron, Catahoula leopard dog, frug (French bulldog/pug mix). Boxer/beagle mixes. 

I was getting over-whelmed. I needed to narrow the scope of my search. I wanted her to be medium size, somewhere between a 20 to 40 LBS (about a third of the size of our rottie). That’s when I really started looking at bulldogs. It turns out that there are lots of bulldog body types out there. There’s the huge Old English Bulldog and there’s the miniature English Bulldog/Pug mix and pretty much everything in-between. They really come in all shapes, sizes, colors and attitudes.

 

I was often drawn to merle breeds. My wife was drawn to the tri color ones that had the same markings as our rottie (no surprise there as my wife has had rotties all her life). I started searching deeper for English bulldog puppies and looked at them compared to their parents. In some cases the parents looked like huge pop-bellied angry drunkards. In other cases the parents looked fit and stocky, happy and had faces that I could love forever.

 

One challenge that I ran into was finding a female puppy that was ideally 8 weeks old and ready to come home with me. I didn’t want to have her shipped on an airplane or train or anything like that. Our rottie was shipped from Chicago in a crate when she was just 8 weeks old and I think that was a very traumatic experience for her. My wife and I had no say in any of that. My wife’s dad had made all those decisions without us (unfairly in my opinion). It was his dog not ours at that time but that’s another story that I don’t want to get into right now.

 

I searched everything, Akc dog finder, California bulldog rescues, puppy finder, the recycler, craigslist, joined bulldog groups on facebook. I eventually narrowed it down to these possible choices.

·         A tri color 300 miles away. My wife was very excited about her and I was not excited about the drive or the price (those factors matter to me I’m not sure why but they do). She was cute, but I didn’t get those heart fluttering butterfly feelings that I was looking for. I felt like I could do better.

·         A merle 40 minutes away.. but she was already sold. I was too late.

·         A merle 40 minutes away, super cute for sure. I wasn’t totally in love with how her parents looked all grown up. And she had more white on her coat that I wanted, but I could easily love her forever.

·         A chocolate merle 30 minutes away. A bit pricier that I wanted to pay, but I needed to see her in person to be 100% sure if this could be love.

·         A black and White

·         A bridle but this one turned out to be a boy

The list goes on and on, phone calls, text messages, emails, and screen shots for following up on requests for more info, more internet searches.

Do you have any female English bulldogs available? Can you share pictures of her parents? What is your fee?

 

That all went round and round for a while.  I had a very strong feeling that Sunday was going to be D-Day (Doggy Day). We had already run a few errands and picked up a dog bed, pottypads, training treat etc. I was pretty set on a tri merle that was a bit whiter than I wanted, so I was having second thoughts. I had heard that a lot of white (or mostly white) dogs usually have bad allergies (to grass, dust ect). We still had planned to meet up that afternoon, and I felt the pressure of the clock ticking away.

 

There was one other brindle that I wanted to see first. That way I would still have options if my first pick didn’t feel right in person. When I talked with the owner I found out that the brindle was actually a male and that wasn’t going to work for my wife and me. He said that he also had a female that was really great (I feel like they all say that). I still wanted to see something before heading out to the white merle.

 

We eventually met up in the early afternoon and he showed us this wonderful tan beauty. She was fit, active but not rough, gentle and happy. My wife looked very excited and asked me if I wanted her. It was love at first sight, I didn’t miss a beat- YES. I could tell my wife was totally for it. We were all very excited!

I'm sure you can see that she's got me wrapped around her paw. She was 9 weeks old and about 10 lbs when my wife and I added her to our family. She gotten bigger and she's a huge (wonderful) part of my life. I'll also say that one of the benefits of this global pandemic is that I get work from home now and every day is bring my puppy to work day! (... and that's pretty cool!)

Well, stay safe and take care of yourself and your family.