My husband Alan and I chose the name Laughing Dog Frenchies after reading an article that said researchers had verified that dogs actually laugh. It was described as a subtle little out breath/chuckling sound they make under their breath when enjoying life. Humor is one of the hallmarks of the French Bulldog breed, they have fun! Sometimes they ooze with glee. Their faces are most expressive and their eyes sparkle with vitality and intelligence. We hope that our babies bring much laughter and love to the households they join. We also hope they laugh often with their newfound pack.
About four years ago I was faced with a dilemma, I had taken a twenty year break from dogs to explore natural healing and I was tired and needing a change. I had been care giving almost every day for over twenty years between children and being a people helper I was feeling burned out and a little directionless. Great gifts come in forms we don’t always recognize. It was at this time my life took on a new direction and joy when my son mentioned to me that he had seen the largest pit bull ever, standing in the road in front of the state park a half mile from our country home.
We went down to find him and failed. Two days later I was down in the park exercising my dog Brooklynn a Mini Daschund and I saw him. He was huge, nearly eighty pounds and appeared to be a purebred Staffordshire Terrier. This is one of the breeds called pit bull. He was a magnificent animal and he was stalking my dog. Immediately my mind began thinking….I knew he had been there for days without food. Two major snow storms were coming and I doubted he could survive. Worse, I realized if he did survive the winter he could become so ravenously hungry that by spring he could be stalking a child.
I took my dog home and returned to collect him, which was easy. I simply opened my car door and slipped a rope over him as he climbed in. This is not recommended for most people. My extensive experience with dogs allowed me to realize he was juvenile about a year old and I felt certain I could handle him. At first he was an angel ….he was very, very tired from roaming the park. Although he seemed passive I kept him away from my pets, both cats and a dog.
Within a week a monster started to emerge. He had a very high energy level; he respected no one as leader. He would shove his face in the faces of people and climb on them towering over them in a display of dominance. This evolved into clear and outright lunging and barking aggression toward all other animals. It was becoming clear that he had been abandoned without a collar or tag for a reason. No wonder no one responded when I posted notices in a wide area to find his owner. He was an out of control, oversized, extremely muscular pit bull. I felt if I took him to a shelter he would be put down as many pit bulls sadly are.
One night he was at a yard party with my son and his friends. He was not being supervised and was running in and out of the woods that surround our five acre property. He slammed into a thick, heavy duty plastic framed license plate and sheered off part of the frame and bent the license plate on the car. I warned my son he needed some serious supervision. Shortly after that my husband came home and all bullies seem to love greetings. He got hyper excited and began running toward the driveway, he accidentally knocked down one of the guys and that caused more excitement then, he grabbed another person’s cuff and began pulling in a fierce shaking way. We put him over on his side and subdued him immediately and the next day I began a two year rehabilitation program. I knew he was too aggressive to be here in this world and I loved him so much I was determined to change it.
I decided to call on everything I had been learning from the first season of The Dog Whisperer on National Geographic Channel. The next day I took him out in our field and began throwing sticks. He was insane about sticks leaping on them, grabbing near hands, clawing with his feet for possession and refusing to relinquish the stick to me. With gleaming eyes fixed on mine, he would twist and shove big sticks violently then wrench them away with a painful twisting motion. I spent three hours reclaiming the stick over and over.
His dominance was met with rolling him on his side and pinning him which took great strength and determination because he struggled. He was awakening a power source in me. We did the roll about thirty times that fateful day. As the session drew to a close he was sitting on command while I threw the stick. He then retrieved the stick and dropped it near me. He would then sit and wait until I threw it again. Suddenly he was watching my face intently and showing appropriate boundaries. A bond and the desire to please a strong leader were born that day.
He became accountable that day and everything began to change. Later driving in the car I told him to sit and stay in the back of my car. He formerly would force his way into the front seat even with someone sitting right there. He would advance like a tank while I was driving and I would push back with my only free hand. Bullies more than other breed instinctively recognize an opening or weakness and seize on that. After our session that same day he sat and even slept in the back. Apparently he understood all the commands he just chose to ignore people.
I realized his high energy level and pent up condition meant he needed a lot of exercise and discipline. At the time, I was a chubby woman in my mid fifties. I needed a plan, only an Olympic athlete could meet his needs. First I taught him to walk in a sterile environment, which was a huge deserted parking lot. He had a predatory interest in anything that moved. On more then one occasion his extreme reactions to tiny birds pulled me out of my Crocs and back in. We walked in the heat almost every day for half an hour, he was improving with exercise and so was I. Being in nature was healing and I wasn’t as tired anymore.
We walked and we walked. Seasons changed and we kept walking. At a certain point he was more comfortable with novelty so I trained him to lope behind my PT Cruiser on the long trails that run for miles through our area. We went past woods and farms and he got to see dogs, cats, horses and cows, but only while moving forward. His obsessions began to calm.
We opened the hatch and I sat in the back facing him with a firm leash. My friend Joe drove while the dog ran behind us. Hunter as my son named him, flourished in this setting and was a total athlete. Joy spread across his face the very first day. In the first months we increased him gradually to a maximum of six miles, and then we found a lake way out in the middle of nowhere and began teaching him to fetch sticks in the water. This really took the tension from his shoulders and kept him cool. My husband Alan and I took him on vacation in Maine and Vermont with our dog Brooklynn. We kept him in a very large crate, and he accepted that calmly, no longer lunging at her. It was a pleasure to introduce him to a bigger world and to see him running with pleasure through the woods of those states too. The commitment stood, even on vacations his program continued.
Slowly over the next year we reduced his exercise down to a mile or two with a swim. I introduced him to other dogs gradually, at first we worked with a realistic ceramic dog. Joe and I walked him past over and over teaching him to keep his eyes forward and relax. We added Brooklynn to the walk and his ideas about dogs changed because moving forward with another dog is fulfilling. Next, I addressed cats, making him lie down in his crate on command and bringing cats closer and closer.
This whole time Joe and I were dominating him by exiting and entering doors first, exerting control on him randomly, often making him sit and stay for long periods and many other things learned from my beloved hero Cesar Millan. I also developed a deep body massage that combined twenty years as an energy worker with the needs of the dog. That murderous tension rolled out to be replaced by dignity, humor and balance.
Today he lives with Joe and two other dogs, he has successfully shared his home with as many as four dogs at once. He doesn’t require nearly the kind of intensive exercise he once did and he is polite and very well behaved. On command whenever he wants Joe can say, “ Over”, and Hunter puts himself over, often flopping like he was shot. This can be employed when things get a little chaotic and it’s like flipping a switch he goes into a calm submissive relaxation mode.
Since cutting my teeth on such a challenging dog, I have found that most dogs require far less correction and certainly much less intensity. I knew the dog’s life was on the line and I did what I needed to do to help him. These days my energy does most of the work and I pride myself on minimizing physical interventions. As I saw myself getting results just like Cesar I fell in love with rehabilitation and found a great passion. Animals are our friends, partners, healers and teachers. I needed Hunter as much as he needed me. I also fell in love with the bully breeds I wanted something with the spirit and challenge of a bully, but smaller and more suited to my age and lifestyle. That is where Butterfly the lovely French Bulldog came into my life.
I was a groomer for seventeen years. I bred a litter of nine Weimaraners in my youth. I have worked in and around animal hospitals for all those years. I was married to a veterinarian for more than a decade and co- owned an animal hospital. For the last four years I have been successfully rehabilitating troubled dogs and enjoying that enormously. All this has prepared me to breed French Bulldog babies with passion and wisdom born of experience. My husband Alan has seen the phenomenal changes in Hunter and he watches Cesar with me. He is very talented with dogs and they love him. He is my able partner and assistant and together we have brought a number of maladapted dogs into our home and our pack with amazing results.
We plan to remain a small private breeder with total focus on each litter as we live together back in the woods. One of Butterfly’s babies from the coming litter will be chosen for future matings, so we are excited about having mother and daughter playing and enjoying the unique companionship only one bully can offer another.
The pups will receive only the best premium nutrition and Momma has a daily massage as will each baby. I have read Cesar’s book How to Raise the Perfect Dog and plan to be able to help people and their pups match energy levels which is important for a good relationship. We plan to photograph each baby weekly and journal their energy levels, developmental milestones and individual observations, each pup will come with a small baby book documenting their first ten to twelve weeks!
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