or how many 1/6 scale bulldogs does it take to fill a diorama?

I’m generally pretty thrifty in my doll and diorama purchases. With the exception of the main character dolls, I get almost everything else on the way cheap – Dollar Store, Goodwill, and Aliexpress. But, sometimes, I get some jones for a particular thing, and I just start buying them in crazy, inexplicable multiples.

That’s what happened this week with bulldogs.

I love dogs – both real and 1/6 scale. My rule is: a dog for every doll, and a dog in (almost) every shot. But my tastes in dogs run towards herding dogs (I have a cattle dog, the dog before that was a cattle dog, a collie before that, and two Belgian sheepdog, in sequence, before that.) The bulldog is not a dog I’ve given a great deal of thought. I like them, in principal, in the way that I like every dog, but they’ve never really held my attention.

Then, the other day at Goodwill, I got a little ceramic bulldog in a dog bed.

The dog looked great with Jinjur, who is decidedly dog lacking.

But, this dog can only sleep. For a doll that lives on the street, that seems like a big disadvantage. Surely, at times, the dog will need to stand up.

So, I went looking for 1/6 scale bulldogs. I looked first at ball joint dolls, but they’re just crazy expensive. I’m not gong to spend $400 to get a standing version of a $3 ceramic sleeping dog.

Fortunately, it turns out that bull dogs are very popular in the 1/6 scale action figure world. If an action figure has a dog, and that dog is not a German Shepherd, then it’s a bulldog. I guess it’s a guy thing. So, well, I bought a few bulldogs.

I got two sleeping french bulldogs (yes, I know they’re not a real bulldogs, but they were so dang cute.) These ones are magnets, and they were $2.50 each (and free shipping) on Aliexpress. (How Aliexpress vendors make money, I will never know.)

Since the two French bulldogs were still sleeping (exactly the problem I was trying, and failing, to solve) I had to get a standing French bulldog to go with them (still, not a real bulldog, but still pretty darn cute). This one was $4.20 on Aliexpress, also with free shipping.

So, now I’m only out $9 and, even though I haven’t actually solved my problem, I’ve not solved it very cheaply. Anyway, I saved so much money on the non-solution that I figured I could (kind of splurge) on a bulldog. I had about 4 different choices, so, naturally, I chose the cheapest one. Here’s the bulldog I got for $25.

I love his big glistening, begging eyes.

There are still at least two more bulldogs I have a wistful eye on, but I figure this ought to hold the girls for awhile. I’m going to give the bulldogs (lying and standing version) to Jinjur and give the smaller Buu the two (or really, three, with two different lying positions) french bulldogs.

I’d get a dog for Ester, but, first, she kind of has a friend coming (fingers crossed – her companion is several months overdue, which may mean some problem with the seller). And, for some reason, she just doesn’t strike me as the dog type. However, she has struck up a friendship with one of my Breyer horses.

Watching over all this dog-buying madness is my real doggy, in her window seat.