Wednesday, March 1, 2006
Luna, our newest pug who recently came to our family has some medical issues. One of her issues is that she has chronic dry eye and she must be given several eye drops each day.
In the morning she receives her first dose. She gets a drop of Cyclosporin in each eye. About 5 minutes later, she must get a drop of NeoPolyDex in her right eye and a drop in her left eye every other day. The third medicated drop is Tacrolimus. She gets this dose about 5 minutes after the NeoPolyDex. That is the morning routine.
Midday is a little easier with only the one dose of Tacrolimus in the right eye. In the evenings, the routine is the same as the mornings.
The one medicine, Tacrolimus, is designed to help stimulate her own natural tear production and it does seem to be working. She will go in for a follow-up visit to the opthamologist in about a month to see if it just our imagination or if it is actually helping. In any case, she will have to be on at least one of these drops, if not all 3, for the rest of her life most likely.
The good thing is that Luna really seems to know that the drops help her to feel better because she generally does a really good job about allowing us to put the drops in her eyes. Her vision isn’t terrific, though. The vet compares her eyesight to that of a frosted car window. She can see light but not a lot of shadows or shapes (out of her right eye).
Her left eye, while also suffering from dry eye, is not quite as bad. Her sight is pretty good in that eye. It can be odd, though, because she can see to jump up on things (and boy, does she ever jump on things—the coffee table, the end table and any other flat surface that she can manage to spring herself on top of.) However, she cannot see to get down off of these obstacles. She’ll get up there but then she’s stuck. Fortunately, we are always there to help the little acrobat decend her monumental climbs.
Hopefully, in time, the meds will be able to help restore at least a small part of her lost vision and then one day she’ll be able to get herself out of trouble.
Monday, February 27, 2006
On Sunday morning, I had to go to the garage to get something out of the car and before I even realized it Benjamin, Henry & Luna had snuck into the car and were camped out in the front seat.
I told them that we weren’t going for a car ride, but they weren’t taking no for an answer. They were persistent and wouldn’t leave the car until I brought out the treats and I promised them that after breakfast we would go for a ride to the park.
So despite the fact that it was a very windy day, after breakfast we drove the long way to the park so the boys and little Luna could have some extra time in the car and we took a nice long walk at the park.
They twisted my arm, but we had fun!
Friday, February 24, 2006
On cool days, the boys like to lounge outside my office door in the screened-in part of the yard. They are out there a lot soaking up the sun’s rays so awhile back I thought I would buy them a nice, comfy, outdoor bed. The bed is meant to be used outdoors and it keeps them up off the ground. The way it is constructed the bed part sags in the middle so it is kinda like a little hammock.
When the bed finally arrived, I was very excited and as soon as I put it together I knew the boys would just love it. Well it turns out that the boys were less than enthused. They wanted nothing to do with the new bed and instead they opted to either sleep on one of the chairs outside or even the ground.
So the bed just said outside for a few weeks and then I noticed that the cat started using it.
The cat found it plent cozy and started spending a fair amount of her time napping in the bed. Well, wouldn’t you know that as soon as the cat started using the bed, the boys started to show some interest and suddenly the bed was good enough for them to sleep on.
So the once never used bed is now the favorite outdoor sleeping spot for everyone.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
One of the things we do almost every night is go for a walk around 9 or 9:30ish in the evening. We find that this walk helps the boys and little Luna get out any pent-up energy and gets them ready for bed.
Since Luna has arrived the boys have been extra playful and after their evening walks they like to play chase with Luna in the yard. They have a great time and they play for quite some time.
Since they have been running around so much, I have found Benny taking a few more cat naps during the day. All that late night playing seems to be interfering with his beauty rest.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
It seems that Luna is a bit of a messy eater. Whenever we put her food bowl down she goes straight to work eating and flicking bits of turkey everywhere. After she cleans the bowl she then runs around the kitchen getting all of the scraps that she flung across the room. After almost every meal, she ends up with a little yogurt on her chin. It’s a good thing that she has brothers. One of them always licks the yogurt off her chin for her.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
A few weeks ago I told you about how Henry started limping and favoring his right leg. We were very concerned so we took him to the vet to get everything checked.
Much to our relief, there is nothing wrong with his knee and his hip condition has not worsened. Unfortunately, though, Henry has developed arthritis in the area around his hips due to his hip dysplasia.
The vet recommended that we start giving Henry glucosamine and on days when things seem to be bad a baby aspirin to help with the discomfort. We have been giving Henry the glucosamine for a little over a week now and I can’t really say that I have seen it make a difference. We are going to keep it up for a bit longer and hopefully it will start to work its magic. In addition to the glucosamine, we are also working to help Henry shed a few excess pounds. Despite our diligence, it seems that Henry (and Benjamin for that matter) have gained a couple of pounds. If we can get Henry back to his ideal weight this will help to relieve some of the burden off his hips.
Fortunately, Henry is handling this all very well. He is a little slow getting started in the mornings (especially on cold and rainy days) and after he has been sleeping for awhile he gets a little stiff. But he still is able to play in the yard and chase Benjamin & Luna and to Benjamin’s dismay he still is as fast as ever.
Monday, February 13, 2006
We didn’t have any big plans for Sunday so we thought it would be a good day to take a drive and go to the big dog park in Jacksonville and let the boys and little Luna run around. This was Luna’s first trip to the park so we were curious to see how she would do in such a huge park with so many dogs.
Luna handled it like everything else that has been thrown her way the past two weeks since we have adopted her. PERFECTLY! She was the perfect little lady playing with many of the other pugs and small dogs in the park. The only tip-off that this was her first visit to the park, was that she fell into the pond in the small dog section.
The small dog section of the park has a small pond at one end where dogs can cool off. Luna thought of the pond more like a puddle and when she was chasing Benjamin & Henry around the pond she thought she would get a leg up by cutting through the middle of the “puddle”. Well to her surprise the “puddle” was a little bit deeper than she thought. All in all, she handled it well. She quickly swam to the edge and shook herself off. Surprisingly, she wasn’t phased by any of it.
We had towels in the car, so we got her dry and put one of Henry’s old sweaters on her to help keep her warm for the rest of the trip.
The boys were up to their usually antics. Running around the sand pile, going through the tunnels and chasing other dogs at the park. They did a good job looking after their little sister and making sure she didn’t stray too far from the pack.
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