ADOPTED
Let me introduce Judy, a darling 1yr old female French Bulldog/Pug mix who is looking for her happily ever after with a loving forever family. Judy weighs 25lbs and will fill out in the months to come and will weigh about 27lbs or so full grown, and is a stocky, muscular, smaller dog. Judy came into our care soon after we got a call from a veterinarian clinic looking for help with her. Judy had been surrendered to their care as a 9mth old dog, heavily pregnant and her owner was unable to manage with the inevitable caesarian section and after care of puppies. They needed a responsible rescue to take her and Judy came into our care the following day. Judy had her puppies, was a good mom, and did her duties, but the toll 8 very hungry puppies took on her body was a hard one, and when relieved of her mothering duties Judy needed a good amount of time to work on herself. She has since gained weight, gotten her energy back and is now a very healthy, active and bright young dog, spayed so she never has to ensure the toll of puppies ever again.
Judy is a complete love of a dog and fostering her has been so easy. She is moderate energy and absolutely loves her walks and can motor along at a good pace, but then is happy to lounge around, chew on toys, or play with her foster dog siblings. She is easy going and easy to live with. Judy loves being on the couch, whether it’s cuddling with her people or chewing her favourite Nylabone toys, the couch is her spot. She does love a good walk or two every day and enjoys time out in the yard as well. On sunny days she likes nothing better than to lounge on the back deck in a sunbeam so she would love to have this opportunity in her forever home. We will say that she is a fair weather dog though. Warm and sunny days she is all in and wants to be outside as much as possible. Rain and cold though? No thanks!!!! Judy has to be forced outside for bathroom duties in the rain, and hates every minute of it. We have a rain suit for her that helps, but still, she will skip long walks on rainy days thank you very much. She also hates being cold so nice winter walks with her well bundled up are ok for her, but she dislikes miserable winter weather and will skip walks on those days too please. She loves to be out in the yard with her people and will be underfoot and into everything, quite the great helper. Judy has a cute habit of running ahead and putting her front feet up on the door as she is heading outside, and giving a good long, full body stretch before you open the door and let her out. It’s her routine and quite comical…adding in a “ooh, good stretch” is appreciated and she will look up at you and smile.
Judy lives with other dogs in the home and is quite good with them. She would like the companionship and playmate potential of a younger, male dog who would enjoy gentle rough housing and wrestles and tug games. Her one foster brother is a Frenchie and she and Judge play every day and entertain us with their wrestle moves, squealing Frenchie noises, and the overt fun they are having. Judy is a dominant female dog though so won’t enjoy a home with a female dog in it…she would like to be the only female dog in the home. She can absolutely have other female dogs to be friends with and go for walks or have playdates with , but not to live with. She can also be the only dog in the home and not have to share the doggie attention. She would like some doggie friends though if this were the case. Judy also has cats in the home and essentially ignores them. Her foster cats are very dog savvy though and don’t react to dogs at all. She would be fine with a dog savvy cat. Judy is well mannered and good natured enough to be fine with a family with children. We do caution though, she will take every opportunity to steal food let within her range, and she is an avid toy chewer and destroyer of stuffies and will not be able to distinguish between dog toys and kids toys. A home with young children who have food at her level and toys strewn about won’t be a good fit for her.
As mentioned, Judy is a foodie and will eat anything she can get her mouth on. You can’t leave food out unattended in her range and expect that she won’t eat it. Frenchie’s and Pugs are known for being gluttonous and she takes over the food loving traits of both these breeds. Caution must be taken to not over feed her as she will eat any portions given. Judy needs to remain trim and fit for a long and healthy life. She is eating a top quality diet that we expect her to remain on as she does quite well on it and she really likes it. (Open Farm Small breed, please research and check availability in your area). She also enjoys a wide variety of fruits/veggies/meats etc that we offer as an occasional treat. She has yet to turn her nose up at any dog treats either but her favourite are dehydrated liver and the healthy, quality ingredient snacks. She is very food motivated so training with treats as initial motivator will work well for her.
Judy’s only “needs work” areas are few. She is an alert barker so will bark when people initially come over, or she sees someone going by from the yard. She is easily quieted with an “aah aah” so it’s not a problem and she is not a dog that barks continuously. She is in fact, mostly very quiet and again, only barks to alert of something or someone happening by. She won’t do well in a busy apartment building with a lot of hallway activity though as this will be too many noises for her to bark at. Judy’s other work in progress is with her socialization. She is a quite friendly and social dog with people she knows, but she is nervous of strangers initially. She only needs a little bit to feel comfortable with new people, she just needs to be given time to get used to them, and not be pressured to interact with them. We find that she feeds off of our dogs confidence and if our dogs are happy to greet people, so is she. This is where having another confident, social dog in the home would benefit her. It is just apparent that her first family did very little with socializing her, so we are playing catch up with that and couldn’t work on this when she was heavily pregnant and then caring for puppies. Attending dog school will go a long way in helping with her confidence and socialization and we encourage anyone interested in Judy to look beyond basic obedience to the advanced levels as she really needs the skills learned in school that go far beyond actual obedience training. Judy is a social butterfly in the making, she really likes people, she just needs more work on feeling confident around people she doesn’t know. Regular visitors to our home are greeted enthusiastically by her and she loves the attention she gets from them. Judy also pulls on leash sometimes, and its mostly exacerbated when walked with other dogs as she wants to be in the lead and walk ahead of the others. Judy sets a very quick pace when walking so needs her people to move along briskly as well. The leash walking will be worked on in classes as well, but her people need to be willing to continue the work we are putting into teaching her to walk well and not pull. And that’s it. She really is an easy dog and will come a long way with proper training and socialization.
Judy is housetrained and very well crate trained. She runs to her crate when she knows it time for bed or when we are leaving. She gets a treat every time she goes in her crate so she is very happy to go in. She rests quietly while in there and you won’t hear a peep from her until morning or when you get home. Judy doesn’t know how to let you know that she has to go outside so we just let her out regularly, and when in the house with us, we keep an eye on her and don’t let her wander upstairs or out of sight. She is happy to be where we are so this isn’t an issue. She doesn’t chew anything inappropriate and does love her chew toys, but we don’t have anything out that would be inappropriate for her to chew, and again, she is supervised. She did take great pleasure in destuffing a dog bed we put outside with her, thinking she would like to lie on it in the sun, so lesson learned…she can’t be trusted with stuffed items unsupervised!! Judy does ok in the car. We crate her in the car for her safety and security. She isn’t a confident traveler yet so the crate offers her calm while traveling. She is a quiet traveler and isn’t prone to car sickness that we have discovered anyway.
Judy is a great little dog. Some lucky person or family is going to get a dog with all kinds of comical personality, and an affectionate companion. She is looking for a forever person for family to live out her life with stability and the commitment to her well-being. If this funny little dog sounds like the perfect fit for you we would love to receive an application and see if this might be a love match!