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!
