SLEEPOVER!

Awww. Boykins. She's just the cutest!


Boykins (l) and Blu (r).

I'm too lazy to go back and see if I mentioned before that Boykins' breeder introduced us to another couple in Boston when we were trying to decide what to do about adopting. Tim and Wendy, who live in the South End of Boston, adopted Blu about two weeks before we adopted Boykins. Wendy was nice enough to chat with me about Frenchie ownership and Encore French Bulldogs (the breeder) after Encore told us about her. We also met Tim and Blu at the Boston French Bulldog Meetup right after Blu came home to Boston.


Nice tongue, Boykins. Keep that holstered, will ya?

In any case, it's turned out to be a great connection for all of us. Most recently, Quan and I were able to take advantage by exploiting Wendy and Tim's kindness. As we had to be in NYC for a wedding the weekend of August 19-20, we were trying to find a reputable kennel we could use for Boykins. I posted a question about kennels to the Meetup message board, and Wendy wrote back to say that she and Tim would be happy to take Boykins in while we were gone. WHAT?! In fact, they were excited by the idea of having the pups together, as they figured it could be really fun for Blu, Boykins, and for themselves. How right they were!


Wrestlemania! (Blu has the upper hand here.)

First, to be safe, we scheduled a quick play-date to make sure the pups would really get along. After all, it would really suck for all parties if we didn't do the dry run and the pups fought horribly for two days straight. Yikes! Wendy, Tim and Blu stopped by on a Saturday morning a few weeks before the wedding, and we let the pups go. They had a blast! They were immediately playing on our kitchen floor, wrestling around and having a great time. We knew from our puppy kindergarten playtime that Boykins really responds to dogs her size, and Blu was just right. And for all we know, coming from the same breeder at roughly the same time, they probably played together back in Michigan. (Blu is just a week younger than Boykins; they came from different litters.)

What's also interesting is how similar the two pups are! Blu is just a little shorter at the shoulder, and is a bit stockier. His head is also a bit larger, so his ears don't seem as huge. Like Boykins, Blu has a white mark on his chest, but it's a bit larger, too. It can be hard to tell them apart if you don't know what to look for!


The new Doublemint Twins. Can you tell which is which?!

On the Friday before the wedding, Quan and I dropped Boykins off with Tim and Blu. The dogs immediately started playing, and were clearly happy as could be. In fact, Boykins was having such fun with Blu, she didn't even notice us leaving. We left all sorts of info with Wendy in Tim in the event something went wrong, but there were no calls. No news was good news!

When we arrived to pick Boykins up late on Sunday afternoon. She came tearing down the hallway and was clearly very excited to see us! It was so nice to get her back...we hadn't expected to miss her as much as we did!

By all accounts, it sounds like she did a great job with Wendy, Tim and Blu. The pups played almost all weekend, running each other ragged the whole time. We got home and after wandering around and getting reacquainted with our condo, she settled into a nap. Well, we thought it was just a nap! Turns out, she was so tired from her weekend with Blu, Boykins didn't even have the energy to eat her dinner. I woke her, but when she got to her food dish, she shot me this look that said, "You woke me for KIBBLE?"

Bokins went back to sleep after that, then Quan woke her up again later for her nightly "forced march" before bedtime. Even when she isn't exhausted, this can be one of the more half-hearted walks of her day. This particular night, Quan says she shot him a look while she did her piddle squat, a kind of "Will this do? Is this what you wanted? Happy now?" before darting back up the porch steps. (There was no evidence she did anything other than squat.)

She was back to normal on Monday, but it was all pretty hilarious. The pups were reunited this past weekend...Quan and I watched Blu while Tim and Wendy ran errands in Cambridge. It was a shorter visit, but they played the whole time and clearly have a lot of fun together. We're hoping we can make this a regular play date. It's good for them to play and good for us that they get tired out.

Here are the rest of the pictures we got from Wendy and Tim. Enjoy!


All that play is hard work! Blu (l) and Boykins (r) crashed out on Tim's lap.


Boykins resting...


Blu says, "Hey Boykins...Whatcha doin'?"

Toofless - sort of

As is the case with lots of puppies, Boykins is a big chewer. I've noticed that she's not doing as much chewing of unauthorized items, but she's still gives knowing glances to us as she leans over to Quan's Tevas, or toward a pair of my sandals. I think the fact that I can't stop getting toys means these are options of last resort.

All this chewing has taken on a new meaning lately as she has started to lose teeth! It's true. I've found four tiny teeth in the last couple of weeks, and we can tell already that she's getting larger molars in the back. Our big clue: she's actually crunching on food and cookies instead of just inhaling them. We test-drove an especially tough cookie at Petco yesterday, and while she was eventually able to break it down, we opted to go for something softer for the time being!


For context...Tiny teeth next to a regular paperclip.

I'm sure she'll lose more teeth in the next few weeks, but these were pretty exciting discoveries. Let's just hope she continues to focus those big new molars on her keys and not on our stuff!

First Bath

A few weeks ago, Quan settled on a new nickname for Boykins: Low Tide. Apparently, he thinks she's been smelling a bit like the tidal pools we find up in Rockport. I can't say I disagree completely, but to me she smells more like Dog. In any case, we decided it might be a good idea to give the girl a warsh.

Given the small scale of our bathroom, and the fact that we only have a stall shower instead of a tub, we decided to take her to a place in Cambridge called LaundroMutt. They have different DIY warshing options, large industrial tubs to warsh your dog, and friendly staff who will help you if you have questions or concerns. (Personally, I think this place is great, esp. for condo-dwellers like ourselves. One of the great things is that you don't have to clean up the mess you make, and the dog doesn't run all over your house shaking the water from her fur onto your furniture and floors.)

The first step was just getting her situated in the tub and used to the idea of having water sprayed all over her. As you can see below, Boykins did not think this was such a good idea at first.


Run away! Run away!

We did our best to calm her down and after we started lathering her up and giving her a warm-water rub-down, she seemed to relax. A bit. It was pretty obvious she was not enjoying her bath experience.


How could you do this to me?!

Given her general unease, I think Quan and I both felt we should rush it a bit. She started to shake a bit and was clearly not happy about the whole situation.

We dried her off a bit with the chamois:




After that, we transitioned to a table where we could dry her off more with a towel, and finish with some ear cleaning and treats galore.

In the end, I don't think she liked it, but she smelled and felt a lot cleaner afterward, and now that she's done this once, I think we'll be able to get through future visits okay.

As you can see, she was just fine when we strolled through the park nearby after the bath...


Gogogogogo!

Wednesday Night Fights!

Twiggy, our friends' pug, has appeared in the Boykins Blog a couple of times already, so it's about time she made her photo debut. Boykins and Twiggy had a little playtime at our place about a week ago, and we got some good shots of them playing in the hallway...


Sizing up the competition.

Mostly, the girls just roll around and do some small-scale wrestling, but for some reason I find it very entertaining.


Boykins lets Twiggy know she's ready to play.

I think Twiggy is generally up for the challenge, but with Boykins being such a puppy and so full of whacked-out energy, I think she starts to feel done before Boykins does.


Gut Shot!

The best part about having the dogs play together is that they both get really tired. It's great to wear Boykins out, because she's a lot less likely to get into stuff when she's spent all her energy reserves.


Wrasslin' 101.

In the end, they managed to go at it for several rounds...Since Twiggy is bigger and more confident in her leaping abilities, she knows she can always jump onto the couch or the overstuffed chair if she needs a break from Boykins. We call it declaring Sanctuary. The funny part about it is that Twiggs continues to taunt Boykins while she's up there, and it's fun to see our pup get so frustrated.


Playing is hard work.