Our 2nd Annual Bully Ball took place last weekend and it was a blast! Bulldog lovers & supporters came together at this black tie event at the Ritz Carlton, Buckhead, GA to raise money for Bulldog Rescue in the southeast. Here are some pictures of the dinner, live auction, silent auction tables and the AABR girls in attendance.

On the way back home from the Ball, little Avery's adoption was finalized! She is now sister to Fergie, another one of AABR's rescues.

I came to AABR over a year ago with very infected ears, icky eyes and lots of other really bad stuff. AABR got me fixed up & healthy & adopted me to a family that promised to love me, take good care of me and never let anything happen to me. They lied!! Mommie Erica got a call from Animal Control saying that they had me!! She didn't even know I was missing! My mommie didn't even look for me at AC until TWO WHOLE DAYS after I left the yard! My adopter spoke to Mommie Beth once, when AABR called her to ask what happened, then NEVER spoke to AABR again! AABR called and emailed her and she never responded! How do you do that? The family was not very good to me after all. My ears are VERY bad again! One of them was oozing down my face!! They also made me FAT! I was a delicate 44lbs (1st pic) when they adopted me and now I'm 57lbs (2nd pic)!! You think that 3rd picture is a happy face? It's not! I'm trying SO hard to breathe. All this weight is not good for a little girl like me. I'm so happy to be back with AABR!! In no time, they will get me back to health (AGAIN) and this time my forever family will be just that....... FOREVER!

Wilson is a young, sweet, bull terrier who was so happy to have AABR spring him from his jail cell, which was actually more like his saving grace. You see, Wilson was picked up by the city as a stray with no microchip or ID on him. A day later, his owner came forward and wanted him back. After the shelter told her about all the fees she would have to pay resulting from his impound and the charges she'd be facing for animal cruelty, she voluntarily surrendered him over the phone. Wilson was smiling, and you could tell he was thankful when we arrived. Thin, not emaciated, with big swollen paws, Wilson is about 3 years old and full grown at 47 pounds. He only has little patches of hair left, spotted with ticks, and big scabs on the top of his spine. He just needs to put on about 10lbs, grow some hair back and he'll be just stunning! After a comprehensive vet visit, our prayer was answered. Thankfully, we are just dealing with demodex mange and not scabies! During his examination, the vet discovered a few bite/puncture wounds on his neck, arms and back. Wilson will be fixed up and recover in a foster home after his 1 week quarantine at the vet is up and then will be vaccinated and neutered when his immune system is stronger. What a sweet, darling boy! He has the absolute best temperament and even while he was on the exam table for 30 minutes enduring poking, prodding, tick removal and 3 different areas on his body skin scraped, he was just perfect and tolerant of it all! Wilson is so fortunate he found safety with those that will actually care about him now and we are so happy to have him!

From the Shelter: "Duke is a registered, male English Bulldog, approximately 18 months of age. He is white with brindle markings. Unfortunatley, he has "cherry eye" in both eyes and is an owner-surrender because the owner could not afford to have this condition corrected. Duke is a character and makes all sorts of snorts and noises, sounding almost like a pygmy goat crying. He is housebroken and must be kept cool during the summer months, as this breed is highly susceptible to overheating quickly due to the conformation of their face, mouth and nose. He is extremely friendly and affectionate and you can tell he has been raised with love."

Duke was surrendered to a shelter in Louisiana after his owners had him living outside with severely infected cherry eyes. After calling the shelter just to make sure this 18 month old boy was not in danger, we surprisingly discovered that he was! With no adopters or any other rescue stepping forward we decided to do whatever it took to save him. The shelter was kind enough to transport Duke over to a local vet that agreed to board Duke for a week until we got the transport arranged. While Duke was boarding, they would neuter him and attempt to tack down his HUGE cherry eyes. A ground transport railroad was formed but at the last minute, our first leg backed out. With no other volunteers in the area, we booked a one way flight to Baton Rouge picked Duke up and drove 15 hours straight back to S. FL. It is apparent that first cherry eye surgery attempt was unsuccessful so on August 18th, 2010, Duke will be going to our eye specialist for cherry eye surgery take 2!

Duke is 44 pounds and gets along with other dogs. He is an absolute love bug, a playful, happy puppy and likes to act as your personal shadow. It's always fun when he rams into the back of your legs with his e-collar on too! What a funny boy! Enjoy these photos from our rescue trip at the airport, picking Duke up, and our trip back in the rental!

Meet Courage - the reason we have been going crazy these last couple days. It all started when we saw this ad online: Free special needs English bulldog. She is roughly 10 tall and weighs 35 lbs. We have been treating her for allergies and fleas but she has not regrown her hair. It would be a wast to put her down, but I am getting faced with no other optio n. She is 1 yr old.

Upon speaking with the author of the ad above, we found out he was a breeder. He lives out in Baker County, FL and has 3 acres of land where puppies - grandparents run free. We told him who we were and what we do & conviced him to let us have Courage, opposed to just some Joe Schmoe responding to his ad wanting a free puppy but unaware of the whole situation. Courage has been living outside on 3 acres since birth. There are 3 generations living on the 3 acres, BYB at it's best, horrible and unthinkable conditions and my mouth just hung open as this breeder continued to talk to me over the phone. Turns out that little Courage is the only survior of 3 litters. All previous bad litters per breeder were either all stillborn, never carried to term by female or were solid white blind & deaf. He even gave me his website to see, he breeds most Olde English Bulldogs, but none the less, I thought I was going to barf. I acted like I was his friend and agreed with everything he said, I'd do anything just to save this one bullie girl and get the info I needed so later I could report him.
We acted quickly to arrange transport to pick up Courage. The breeder refused to hold her until the morning for us, so we had just 4 hours to get her. Finally, we found a nice volunteer to drive over and hour and a half just to pick her up. He did so and brought her back to his home in Jax. The next day we arranged a 6 person bullie railroad from Jacksonville Beach to Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Thank you to all involved in this very emotional rescue. I personally have yet to meet this bullie girl, several of you will meet her before I do as she travels down the entire east coast of FL to get to AABR headquarters. Courage's profile will be updated with the offical results of her medical status once all the pending tests come back from the lab.

If you had 2 English Bulldogs that you were trying to re-home who were living in your backyard, a mother and son pair ages 7 and 5, (so you claim) covered in fleas, filthy dirty, past due on everything medical including state required rabies, both un-sterilized, and 1 with a cleft palate - don't you think you'd want to surrender them to rescue, to an organization that would actually take care of them and raise the funds needed to ensure their health and get all surgeries needed.... right?!?!? Of course not! You'd rather sell them for $200 and want nothing to do with rescue! After 3 failed "selling" attempts to just any Joe Schmoe that responds to your online ad, you are persistent in your "$200 firm" and you'd rather just get the cash and hand them off to a complete stranger - makes perfect sense to me too! Soooooooo, you force the rescue to get sneaky- they send a friend (who is really a rescue volunteer) to contact you to play as an interested buyer.... your 4th interested buyer. Behind the scenes, on the opposite end of the coast, you are totally unaware that a couple of rescue mommies are trying to get some cash together to Western Union the money over to your 4th potential buyer. Little do you know, this "seller" is actually going to be the only person to actually complete the transaction and get these precious bullie the love and care that they have been denied their whole lives. To be continued....