|
|
|
||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Sentinel Bull Terriers
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Maybelline & Ruby's Page
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Maybelline was my first Bull Terrier. I had wanted a Bull Terrier ever since the first time I saw Spuds MacKenzie on a Bud Light commercial - it was love at first sight. My obsession grew over the years as I compiled a library of books about the breed and collected various Bull Terrier memorabilia. When I finally purchased my own place, the first order of business was to get that Bull Terrier I had been dreaming of. Easier said than done. It was like getting credit for the first time, you had to already have had one to get one! I finally found a breeder willing to sell me my first Bull Terrier. I could hardly wait for the weekend to go see her.
The breeder's kennel was smelly, dirty and noisy. The puppy was not quite what I had in mind - she was extremely small with a pointy nose and chewed up ear. She was so shy she hid under a cart the entire time. Still, I just couldn't leave her there so I wrote a check and took her home. It quickly became obvious that she had never been out of the kennel before. She was seriously agoraphobic. I had to carry her just to get her to go outside. She would cower and tremble when I'd put her down. Grass terrified her - she had no idea what it was. Little by little Maybelline improved. It was 6 months before Maybelline wagged her tail for the first time. I'll never forget it - I burst into tears - I finally knew she really was capable of being happy.
After that Maybelline improved by leaps and bounds. She made doggie friends at the local park which gave her lots more confidence. Although she will never have a normal Bull Terrier temperament, Maybelline now wags her tail several times every single day - she is a happy girl and I have never regretted my decision to bring her home.
Maybelline turned TWELVE on 12/1/07!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
|
||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Ruby was my 2nd Bull Terrier and was sort of another personal rescue. She and her littermates were advertised in the local paper for $250 - first come, first served - no questions asked and no papers due to a break-up of a breeding partnership. By the time I got to the "breeder's" house to look at the litter, only one puppy was available and the people who had an appointment scheduled before me were late due to getting lost on the way there. I knew in advance that all the puppies were red and I already had the name Ruby in mind so when I got there and this last puppy's name was Ruby - I knew she was destined to come live with Maybelline & I. The only advice I received from the breeder when I took her home was to be sure and feed her Solid Gold kibble because that was "the only thing that kept hair on their dogs". I thought this was strange, but faithfully fed Ruby Solid Gold until one day her hair started falling out at an alarming rate and then suddenly over one weekend she developed a horrific case of staph infection all over her hairless body. The Vet diagnosed her with generalized demodectic mange. The only treatment which ended up helping Ruby was an oral dose of Ivermectin which was first recommended to me by Dr. Tom Wright DVM, to whom I will always be grateful.
With her Demodex under control, Ruby felt much better and was up to her normal Bullie antics. Ruby loved everyone and everything and never held a grudge if the other guy wasn't as accomodating as herself. She was a Bull Terrier that you could take to the dog park without a problem. One day I saw a woman pushing a baby in a stroller into the dog park - Ruby considered herself the official greeter and galloped off to welcome the newcomers. Suddenly the baby started screaming bloody murder and all I could see was Ruby all over her. I ran over not believing what I was seeing - Ruby making a baby cry. Well, this foolish woman had given her kid a box of Chicken McNuggets to nibble on at the dog park while strapped in a stroller! Thank doG it was Ruby who got there first - sure, she helped herself to the McNuggets, but was VERY careful not to hurt little fingers and was busy cleaning McNugget grease off the kid's face before any of the other dogs could get there!
Ruby had her favorite doggie friends - two Beagle/Basset Hound mix littermates that I dubbed the "Beaglesettes". Being littermates the Beaglesettes would get into sibling spats, a situation that Ruby just couldn't stand to see - her two best friends fighting. When a fight would break out, Ruby would either grab the dog on top by the collar and pull him off or do a big Bullie run in a circle around them, leap into the air, and land in between them, wriggling like a maniac to get them to forget the fight and to play with her.
Ruby was always a fixture at the Bull Terrier Rescue of Southern California events and won her share of costume contests. The funniest costume was her Rasta-dog hat with the long dred-locks. A local Hollywood animal trainer (who trained the BT Chico in the Next Friday movies) was at the Rescue Bullerama that year and agreed to take Ruby into the costume contest for me, not realizing why until he saw Ruby's matching hair style to his! Everyone was laughing hysterically, flashbulbs were popping right and left - Ruby loved every minute of it.
Ruby had a mischievous side and was a notorious counter surfer. Her biggest score was an entire flat of Costco muffins. Another time she managed to turn one of the gas burner knobs on while surfing the top of the stove. I was out to dinner with friends and I could barely breathe when I opened the front door to the house it was so filled with gas. I held my breath and went running in the house to drag the dogs and cat outside. Ruby was lying motionless next to the oven on the kitchen floor - I was sure she was dead, but she was apparently just resting from her strenuous workout of trying to blow the place to kingdom come. Luckily she had eaten the garage door opener the week before so I had to enter the house using a key in the front door - if I had activated the garage door opener I think it would have been ka-boom time.
Ruby was not a big fan of weather. If she needed to go outside she would stick her head out the dog door to measure her acceptance of the current weather. If it was raining or too hot, she would only go so far as to put her front feet through the dog door and then squat with her behind still in the house..... I think she knew she was cheating because she would always give me a challenging look afterwards that seemed to say "What? I was technically outside wasn't I?"
Several years ago I decided to take Ruby with me on vacation to see my family in the Mid-West. My Grandfather had just suffered a stroke and was homebound and depressed. His new wife, I could tell, was driving him nuts with incessant chatter about knitting and baking and he would keep increasing the volume on the TV remote until she was completely drowned out. The wife wasn't so keen on having a dog in the house, especially one as ugly (her opinion) as Ruby. Ruby seemed to sense the woman's distain for her so she, of course, gravitated to her to try and make friends. Every time the wife would start chattering about knitting and baking, Ruby would try to join in the conversation with loud Bullie woo-woo sounds. Nothing I did would stop her - (OK, I didn't try that hard...) Suddenly I heard something over the woo-woos and the chattering...... It was my Grandfather laughing! I hadn't seen my Grandfather smile since my Grandmother had died, let alone laugh like that and that week was the last time I ever saw it until he died several years later. I fell in love with Ruby all over again that day.
Unfortunately Ruby's health problems didn't end with the Demodex and it became necessary to make the call to end her pain and discomfort from the afflictions that haunted her. I like to picture her in heaven making my Grandfather laugh some more. Yes, that's my idea of heaven - having a Bullie to make you laugh and I think it is also a Bullie's idea of heaven - making someone laugh. Thanks Ruby for making this heaven on earth for me.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
| page created with Easy Designer |