Dear Bob,
I am a new memebr to this site but I still have in my private emails a message from you dated july 2004 about Ortino, and several ones from Rob Mosheim. Both of you were kind enough to give me a few explanations about Ortino and a marvellous photo of the dog too.
To-day, I red an article that a friend, who has been breeding french bulldogs for more than 40 years in the UK, sent me. It is not a new article and it comes from an american dogs magazine and was written by Carol Gravestock-Taylor. The author says that the last Imperial Family owned at least 2 frenchies and she quotes GD Anastasia, november 30 th 1914 " Now we've got another charming french puppy, Billie ". I think that here GD Anastasia is in fact talking about frenchie girl Ortino, which was a present to GD Tatiana from Dimitri de Malama around october 12 th 1914 ( Anna Viroubouva acting as " go-between " ). Isn'it simply a mistake in the calendar, Anastasia using the old rusian calendar which was 13 days ahead the western calendar ? Thus her letter would be dated " western way " november 13th, and Ortino was very " new " to the family then. Moreover, many french bulldogs then had a proper name indeed, but they were very often called " billie" in english, " bouboule " in french and " bullie " in german, whatever their proper name was. At the end of the article, there is a photo tittled " a cameo of Ortino that Tatiana treasured ". It looks rather like a plain photo of Ortino in a frame than like a proper cameo
I had never seen this before.
I am also very intrigued by the posting of Greg King dated 14/02/2004, where it is said that a first Ortino was short lived as the dog died in septemeber 1915 ( Empress Alexandra 's cable dated 05/09/1915 ) and that at once Dimitri de Malama gave another frenchie to GD Tatiana, whom she immediately named again Ortino ? Has this been verified ? I had never heard of it before. The only other french bulldog I know of that the IF had, and who was rather short lived indeed, is the brindle puppy that appears on many photos taken at the time Alexandra made a cure in Germany in 1910 and when the whole family stayed for several weeks with all the Hessian relatives. The french bulldog puppy appears either on a family group photo, sitting on Alexandra's knees. Or in the arms of Alexis. Or on a bench where Alexis is sitting surrounded by his 2 very young Hesse and The Rhine cousins. I am sorry to say that I do not remember or know the name of this first frenchie who did not live long. I would be very interested to know ( together with all french bulldogs lovers in France and in the United Kingdom ) whether anything new has come to light about " the 2 Ortinos " since Greg King sent his post in 02/2004 ? I have bought Mr Greg King 's last book which is a very interesting study of the Last Russian Court, but there is nothing more about these 2 presumed Ortinos, though of course the book is WONDERFUL in many ways.
Thanks and regards.
