Thursday, January 12, 2012
Pretty much the only window that Benny is brave enough to stick his head out of is the back window of G-Pa's pick 'em up truck (the one that leads to the truck bed).
In our car, Benny wants to stick his head out of the window, like his brother Henry, but he can never seem to overcome his trepidations. This usually results in Benny jockeying for prime window position and then just whining at the window. We don't call him Baby Benny for nothing. 
Monday, January 9, 2012
We got a new chair last week and the pugs have been diligent in testing it out. So, far I think they approve.
Last week, we also had a cold snap so pretty much every blanket in the house was in use. The kitty on this blanket is the only cat to ever come close to snuggly with Benny. Cats just don't seem to like good ole Baby Benny.
The pugs would also like to wish G-Ma a very happy birthday!
Monday, December 19, 2011
Not only are the pugs still waiting for all the yummy holiday treats, but Benny just remembered that he has one more big thing to wait for this week - G-Ma & G-Pa!
A little birdy also told Benny that G-Pa has told G-Ma that she is going to have to stop buying pug treats and get them when she gets to FL because she is quickly filling up the car. A car full of pug treats? Oh, G-Ma and G-Pa can't get here soon enough!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Not a fantastic picture, but I love shots that show how much smaller Luna is than the boys. Luna is small in stature, but she is big on personality and sass! I guess it is true what they say, looks can be deceiving.
Monday, December 12, 2011
While Luna was in charge of supervising present wrapping, Benjamin and Henry had the task of monitoring the tree trimming. They were only semi interested in the decorating part, but as soon as the tree was trimmed they wanted to know where their presents were. Patience pugs, patience.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Well, I wanted to touch base on the status of Benjamin’s medical issues. (He signed the HIPAA waiver, so I have permission for those that were concerned about me infringing upon his legal rights.);)
After much back and forth between our usual vet and the eye vet(s), the current diagnosis is a combination of dry eye and allergies. I say eye vets because we have now seen each of the 3 specialists that practice at the AVS location we visit.
Benny is being medicated for seasonal allergies (he pops a human Claritin daily) and he will go the end of this week for one more trip to the eye specialist to get his 6 month treatment plan. His maladies have seemed to have settled down. No face swelling. The licking and scratching have appeared significantly less. The true bonus is that his chest x-rays came back normal.
The unusual thing about the diagnosis of dry eye, is it is the same problem Luna suffers from, but not really the same at all. Benny produces tears. Luna does not produce tears on her own. Benny’s problem is the quality of his tears. Thus, even though he produces tears, his eyes would still be considered dry. Seemed very odd to me at first but I guess I get it now.
So, this is where we are with Baby Benny. I must say that I have also been living up to most of my end of the deal with better upkeep of the ear cleaning and wrinkle cleaning. Toenail trimming, while better is still a sore spot. During his procedure of the anesthetized ear cleaning, the vet saved me some specimens of what he removed.
Funny, even though his ears are clean, he doesn’t seem to listen any better. 
He definitely has very selective hearing, I would say. He is continues to live up to his aging man nickname of Solsey Benny! (Of course this is said the way we used to say Solsey Baby!)
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Well, I always like to preface a long blog with the following: pull up a chair; it’s going to be a doozy. It’s going to be a long story (even though I am trying to make is short).
Before leaving for vacation, Benjamin was experiencing what I considered to be allergies. He had been licking his feet, scratching his ears and rubbing his face into the back of the sofa. We had noticed that one of his lower eyelids was a little droopy and that one of his jowls was a bit puffy and hanging lower than the jowl on the other side of his face. We didn’t think that much about it as initially we thought the face swelling had to do with his dental issue that we tended to before we left on vacation. Then, while in the mountains of North Carolina, Benjamin did not experience any of these things. This furthered my suspicion that Benny has allergies. This suspicion was even greater after we arrived home and his eyes got all goopy and he started squinting. He also had swollen wrinkles, and that eye droop was back. He was in such rough shape that I had to take him to the vet. The vet noticed not one but two ulcers on his corneas. (One on each cornea, that is.) The vet gave us some drops and said to come back in a week if he hadn’t improved; and stressed that if he was worse that could be indicative of a more severe problem.
Benny was better in a week. No worries. Well, about another week the later, the same symptoms start cropping up again. This time, since I already have a trip to the eye specialist for Luna planned, I call and ask if I can tack Benjamin on to the appointment so we can get a better idea of what is going on with him. “Of course,” they share. So, I tote both Benjamin & Luna to the eye specialist (which, as you know is no small jaunt; it’s about 50 miles away).
So, there we are at the eye vet with Benny. He has an ulcer in his left eye. They are of the mind that it is self inflicted. They ask the questions which demonstrate my poor supervisory skills:
Then embarrassingly, I try to conceal his mile long toe nails on top of it all….
So, the eye specialist loads him up with a variety of drops (3 different ones) and a gel (just one). Shortly after that, though, comes the icing on the cake: the cone! (I guess, I should have said the ice cream came next because the cone would make more sense to go with ice cream than cake.) Well, Benny can barely make it around the house and neighborhood coneless let alone wearing a satellite dish around his neck. Good grief.
Yet, home we go with Benny, the coned dog, and Luna who is just happy as a peach not be the wearer of the cone.
Oh, holy cow. I almost forgot one of the best parts…Benjamin has to go back the next day for a follow up! Really? Hate to sound like a whiney baby that won’t do anything for their kids, but we did just get back from vacation so I have taken a bit of time off work lately…and now I need to take back to back trips to the vet where each round trip is at least 3 hours? Aw geez.
In the meantime, Benjamin had another appointment that afternoon with our regular vet about the droopy/swollen face issue. The eye specialist could not see any link to the squinty/goopy eye to the other maladies. I had updated our primary vet on the status of Benny and shared what the eye vet had to say. After some consideration and an exam, the primary vet, told me to ask the eye vet if she would consider a condition called Horner's Syndrome. Horner's Syndrome is not a disease it is more like a combination of symptoms that when linked together can be indicative of a number of diseases/conditions. So, the most simple is no known cause, to relatively simple such as a middle ear infection or severely problematic of chest or brain tumors.
With that philosophy, the primary vet attempts to examine Ben's ears. Well, lovely, they are filled with impacted fur. So, now this is even more where the "I'm a bad mom" guilt sets in. His ears are filthy. So filthy actually that he needs to be mildly sedated to have them cleaned. So, the ear cleaning is scheduled, as well as a toe nail clipping and a head/chest X-ray.
Here is my promise for the future:
I will be a better mom about cutting his toenails (even though they grow twice as fast as Luna’s & Henry’s); I will be sure he wears the cone when needed so as not have him scratch his face so much that he puts an eye out (for you "Christmas Story" fans, that should raise a giggle) and I will be sure to stay on top of his ear cleaning (even though he is by far the worst at this task---as the primary vet put it during the exam when speaking to Ben, he said, "Boy, you strong. Like bull.")
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