Thursday, June 11, 2009

So Easy Even a Pug Can Do It

This is why the Ikea instruction booklets are just pictures.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Nosy

I have never met a dog that has so much interest in what others are doing as Henry does. I think it is safe to say that he would win the award for nosiest pug hands down. It is not uncommon for him to just stop and stare at people while we are out on our walks. He will be walking along, see something that catches his interest and stop dead in his tracks. He always takes a couple of good sniffs in the air to pick up any scents and then he just watches. He isn't shy about it and he doesn't try to pretend like he isn't watching. Instead, he stares people down with a look on his face that say, "Watcha' doing?"

The funny part is, that most of the time, the people he is staring at aren't doing anything too terribly interesting. They might be cutting their grass, walking to their car or watering flowers. Nothing that he hasn't seen before.

Anyone else out there have a nosy pug?

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Dynamic Duo

One day, one of the boys had the bright idea to lift their leg and pee on the screen enclosure that goes around our pool.  Since the pugs know that they can not walk through the screen enclosure, they treat it like a wall and they are unable to comprehend that the little holes in the screen let their pee pee go through to the other side of the deck.

When they first discovered that the could pee from the outside of the screen and it would land on the deck they were quite pleased with themselves.  It was like they just found out they possessed super powers.  They could now pee through walls!

While Batman & Robin think of this as a glorious thing, I’m not too happy with it.  I have tried to make them stop, but they have me on a technicality.  They are in the yard outside when they go potty!  The only requirement I have ever had was that you go potty outside in the yard, I never specified exactly where in the yard.

To deter them from going potty through the screen, I built a little garden next to the screen and filled it with plants.  It worked for awhile as the plants became their new favorite thing thing to pee on.  But then, the boys changed things up and started peeing on a different part of the screen.  I didn’t really want to plant another garden so I got a little bamboo fence that you stick into the ground.  It isn’t very long, but it covered the main spot where they like to go potty.

It worked for awhile, but then the other day I spotted Benny doing this.

Come on Ben!  Must you?  The boy doesn’t have much smarts in other areas of life, but when it comes to peeing on things he is a genius!

The way I see it, I have two choices.  Take the easy way out and get more bamboo fence or for once and for all train them not to pee on the screen enclosure.  While it does irk me to have to squirt off the deck so often, I keep thinking back to when Benjamin & Henry were puppies and the never ending potty accidents I had to clean up in the house.  Those memories make this screen issue seem trivial.  This is about as close as they come to having potty accidents and that makes me one lucky woman.

I have 5 animals and, knock wood, they all go potty in the proper places.  The only issue is my two superheroes that sometimes abuse their super powers and pee through walls.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Sol’s First Swim

On Saturday, after hitting the gym and working hard in the yard, the pool was looking mighty nice.  So we drug out all the pool toys and the life vests and spent some time splashing around.  The boys were having a good time running around and playing tug with the toys.  Henry was his usual self, fetching everything out of the pool.  But for Sol, this was the first time anyone has ever been in the pool.  So we of course had to see how she liked the pool. 

She swam quite well with her vest on.  She was a little splashy with her front paws which led to a little extra water getting on her face, but all in all she did a very good job.  We were very careful to make sure she did not overdo it on the swimming.

While Sol was fine with swimming, way less nervous than Benjamin & Luna, but not as relaxed as Henry, her absolute favorite thing to do was be held and enjoy the cool water.  We took turns holding and floating around with her and she was in her glory!  I think we may have to resurrect the pug tug.

I managed to get two short videos of Henry and Sol in action before the batteries in the camera died.  First up is Henry and then there is a short video of Sol swimming.

Henry the Lifeguard from obp on Vimeo.

Sol’s First Swim from obp on Vimeo.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Waiting for the Tooth Fairy

A few days before his birthday, Henry was chewing a rawhide bone on the sofa.  He was steadily chewing and I walked to the kitchen to do something.  The next thing I hear is a surprisingly loud *snap* sound and when I look in the direction of the sound, I see Henry in mid air like a startled cat.  As soon as he lands, he jumps off the sofa and is eyeing the sofa like it just attacked him.  I walk over to see what is going on and I see Henry’s rawhide bone along with something white laying on the sofa.  I look at the white thing a little bit harder and I notice that it is a tooth!  I immediately turn to Henry and he looks fine, other than the fact that he is now afraid of the sofa.  In fact, he is so fine that he wants me to give him his bone back so that he can finish chewing.  I call him over, make him sit and pry open his mouth.  Sure enough he snapped part of his fang off!  Exactly, how he did this will remain a mystery, but I am thinking that he got his fang caught in the rawhide bone and used his paws to pull the bone away from his mouth.  In doing this, he broke his tooth.

Other than being scared of the sofa, he had no reaction.  He even went over to the toy bin and got another bone!  There was no blood, and there appeared to be no discomfort on Henry’s part.  So I did what any good pug mom would do.  I made him get his picture taken with the offending bone and his tooth.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

The Slide

We walked to a playground at a nearby school the other day and the boys were in rare form.  Here are some photos of the boys hitting the slide.

And this is what happens when Henry is laying in wait at the bottom of the slide.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Happy Birthday, Henry!

Happy Birthday, Henry!  Today Henry turns 7 years old.  It has always been hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that Henry is younger than Benny.  From day one, Henry has always played the big brother role because, let’s face it, Benny has always been Baby Benny.  But, they are only a week apart in age, so I guess it really could go either way.

Henry is by far the most adventurous of the four pugs.  I remember when it was just the boys and we would take them on hikes through the woods, Henry would never stay on the trail.  He was always straying off to the left or the right to see what he could discover.  Which totally paid off for him the day he stumbled upon a whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich just laying on the ground.  It probably is his biggest find to date, but his finders resume isn’t too shabby as he has really come across some crazy things over the years.

For me personally, Henry fills a special part in my life.  He is my big dog in a nice small package.  You know how some people are drawn to small dogs and some love big dogs?  I have always found myself stuck in the middle somewhere.  A part of me loves larger breed dogs and would love to do all the rough and tumble big dog things.  But, another part of me loves just being able to scoop up one of the pugs and carry them around with ease.  I think it is really one of the reasons I love the pug breed so much.  Pugs are small, but they have a lot of big dog traits, hence the “multum in parvo” description.

But, for me, Henry is just the perfect combination of big dog attitude in a small dog body.  He loves to swim, likes to pretend he is a hood ornament when we ride in the car and has an all around adventuresome outlook on life.  I will never forget the time we took the dogs to a dog park in Annapolis, Maryland.  It was our first time visiting the dog park and a few of the regulars told us about a nice little walk that led to a spot that looked out on the Chesapeake Bay.  They also told us about a little section of beach that was used as a unofficial dog beach.  Eager to take in the view of the Bay, we set out with the pugs.  After we spent a few minutes looking out at the water, we walked over to the dog beach.  It was a windy day and the water was very choppy, but the beach was still full of labs and appropriately enough at least 5 Chesapeake Bay Retrievers all fetching sticks or balls from the water.

After seeing how choppy the water was we decided that we weren’t going to encourage the pugs to take a swim.  We figured the pugs would have fun just running along the beach.  We made our way down the narrow trail that led to the beach and when we hit the sand we unleashed the pugs.  Benny ran around in the sand and Henry took off running into the choppy Chesapeake Bay after a few retrievers.  My first instinct was to intervene and not let him into the water, but I didn’t want to be the nervous mom so I let him go to see what he was going to do.  Out he went and he was immediately bobbing up and down in the very choppy water.  A few times, waves went right up over his head, but he didn’t care.  He was doing his best to keep up with all the bigger dogs.  He only made a few trips out and back before he was tuckered out, but that didn’t matter much to me.  It was quite a site to see a pug paling around with labs and retrievers in the Chesapeake Bay.

Besides being the most adventurous, Henry is also the most trusting of all the pugs.  Not that the other pugs are nervous around us, but Henry just has this notion that no matter what the circumstances we will not fail him.  For instance, he will just leap right out of the truck at you, fully expecting you to catch him.  And if he is leery of something, he will do it if you tell him because he has this trust that we would never steer him wrong.  It is one of the greatest feelings in the world and one of the things that fuels his adventuresome spirit.

So, in honor of Hank’s 7th birthday, here are a few of my favorite Henry moments shared on the blog:

• Things I learned from my pug Henry
• Footage from the Yellow Submarine
• Lifeguard
• The Pug Tug
• Ready to be served
• Improvising

Also, to celebrate the founding pug’s birthday, we are offering free shipping at H. Doodle on all orders through the weekend (4/3/09 - 4/5/09).  Just use the coupon code henry7 during checkout.