Weds 6th June: French bulldog versus Boston terrier

I’m not sure which is worse for the dogs, being too cold or too hot but I know that my Lamma dogs are happy to just sit and soak in the sea on our morning walks.  Me too, come to that.  We’ve been getting the splash pools at Tai Po modified after having found that the sides were a bit too high for most dogs (there must be a universal agreement amongst dogs as to what’s an acceptable height) but once the sides had been trimmed by a couple of inches it made all the difference.  A volunteer has also been putting drain holes (with caps of course) in the ‘pools’ so they’re easy to empty and clean.

Henry is a very sweet dog

Henry, one of the dogs at our Ap Lei Chau Centre had to be sent to the vet as an emergency case when he stopped eating and wasn’t as playful as normal.  As he’d just recently had treatment for heartworm I was concerned that it was related (because some dogs react badly and can even die in rare cases), so I told Iris to get him to Acorn as quickly as possible.  It turned out to be just as well as there was a foreign body stuck in Henry’s gut, and even though it was hard to identify it looked like a part of a rubber toy.  Poor Henry, it hasn’t been an easy time for him what with having been abandoned to start with, then having heartworm and the treatment and now needing to be opened up to remove an intestinal blockage.  And all within a couple of weeks.  He’s such a great little guy, so sweet, friendly and happy, and I think he deserves a lovely home after all he’s been though.

It’s quite interesting to see that we have had so many enquiries for Happy, the French bulldog with a bad skin problem, though not so many for Henry who is a Boston terrier.  At at least that’s what it say on his license, but quite honestly it’s hard to tell as not only are the two breeds very similar anyway, but many seem to be a mix of the two.  We see this a lot with beagles, the Hong Kong versions, who are the right “style” and colour but are much bigger or longer in the body than a ‘real’ beagle should be.  They may be a mix of beagle and basset hound, again two fairly similar hound dogs, but whatever is in them they’re not the standard beagle.  Iris (Ap Lei Chau Manager) found this article about the French bulldog and Boston terrier comparison, although I have to say the description of a Frenchie isn’t what I have found from my experience.

http://terrierbreed.blogspot.hk/2010/08/boston-terrier-vs-french-bulldog.html?m=1

There’s nothing wrong with a dog being a mix, it’s just that the breeders and pet shop are conning those that pay for what they think they’re getting but end up with something often quite different.  We’ve seen a few “shiba inus” surrendered who are at least double the size of the breed, not to mention many other dogs whose owners think they’re something that they’re quite clearly not.

My own choice will always be a mix of breeds anyway, because that way you get the best parts in one.