Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Luna’s Loot

Luna has really taken a liking to the bag of loot we got for the pugs a few weeks ago.  Instead of having a squeaker it has crinkle stuff and boy does she ever make some noise with that thing.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Pug Pile

I always love it when Benjamin, Henry & Luna smoosh together even though they have plenty of room to spread out.  They act like this is the only sunny spot in the house.

With it being so hot lately, they have been doing a lot of laying around.  We have been going for walks in the evenings which have been great.  Last night we got about 3/4’s of a mile away from home and the sky behind us began to look a bit ominous so we turned around and contemplated on taking a shortcut back home.  After some debate, we took the shortcut and made it home 7 minutes before it poured down rain.  It was a fun little race against Mother Nature.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Looney Tune

Luna’s eyes are by no means perfect, but when I look at this photo it makes me think just how far this little girl has come.  I’ll never forget when she had her first Schirmer Tear test and both her eyes registered at zero, meaning she was producing absolutely no tears.  Her eyes were bone dry.  Now she regularly scores a 13 or 14 on the test.  It isn’t perfect, and I don’t think we will ever get to perfect, but it certainly is a far cry better.

She has settled in nicely and while she has only been here for a little over 2 years I feel like she has been a part of the pack since Benjamin & Henry were pups.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Freaky Friday

Cupid exploring the yard in a freedom harness.

The pugs hanging out in the new cat climber.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

If Prince can be a symbol I guess Luna can be a tone

A few weeks ago I realized that Luna doesn’t really know her name.  Her real name that is.

When we adopted her we could have easily renamed her because she had no clue that her name was Luna.  Sure, she would wag her tail when you said Luna, but at that point she wagged her tail at everything.  Her name seemed to fit her so we opted not to change it and figured she would learn her name along the way.

I am ashamed to admit that Luna has not had any real training.  We haven’t taken much time to teach her the basics of obedience nor have we taken her to any training classes.  I feel a bit bad because we have invested a lot of time in the boys’ education.  When they were about 11 weeks old we took them to puppy class and after they graduated from puppy class they took a general obedience class.  When they were young we worked tirelessly to get them to obey basic commands.  But our training efforts weren’t because we wanted to have the most obedient pugs in the neighborhood, it was just to keep them from bouncing off the walls.  We had to teach Benjamin to sit before we would feed him because otherwise he would just jump straight up and down and try to get the food bowl out of our hands.  It really doesn’t matter to me if he is sitting or standing when I feed him, just as long as he isn’t scratching my legs and making me spill his food.  We had to train the boys because they needed the rules to act right.  Luna, on the other hand, was calm and didn’t act like a wild woman so we never felt the same urgency to train her.  Luna didn’t need training, she needed love and proper care.  Our main focus with Luna was taking care of her eyes and skin and making her feel secure in her new home.  When we first adopted her she literally would fall asleep standing up.  It took awhile before she would be comfortable enough to sprawl out and really snooze.

With our emphasis on TLC, we never really took time to teach Luna her name.  Sure we called her Luna all the time, but being the nickname type people we are we soon started to call her Looney.  And since she is such a precious girl we couldn’t resist saying it in a nice high pitch squeak each time we called her.  Say, “Luna”, or even “Looney” for that matter, and you won’t get much of a response from the little girl, but say “Looney” in the special high pitch voice and you will have her attention immediately.  It isn’t what you say, its how you say it.

Even more embarrassing is that Luna responds very well to “Girl”.  Before we adopted her we frequently referred to Benjamin and Henry as “boys”.  If you wanted them to come all you needed was a simple “here boys” and you had two pugs sitting at your feet.  It was a simple way to address both of them.  Somehow that conveyed into calling Luna “girl”.  If she walked over to me I would always say, “hey girl!”  And if I wanted her to come I would say, “Come, girl.”  It stuck with her.

The funny thing is that the only pug that really knows Luna by her real name is Henry.  Henry is very smart and knows everyone’s name.  When you say Luna he knows exactly who you are referring to.

Friday, May 30, 2008

The Schedule

I had a few people ask about Luna’s eye drop schedule so I thought I would post about what seems to be the never ending cycle of drops.  So here we go:

• Tacrolimus: Luna gets Tacrolimus in both eyes twice a day.  If I can catch her before she heads back to sleep after breakfast I give her her first round of drops for the day.  If I don’t get a chance to give it to her after breakfast, I give it to her about mid-morning.  I give her the second dose shortly before dinner.
• Cyclosporin: Luna gets one drop of Cyclosporin in her left eye.  I usually give her this drop when I take my lunch.
• NeoPolyDex: Luna gets one NeoPolyDex drop in each eye every other day.  If it is a NeoPolyDex day, I usually give her these drops in the afternoon around 3pm when I have a little pick-me-up snack.  The hardest thing with the NeoPolyDex is remembering if it is NeoPolyDex day or not.  I have this one marked on my calendar as my days tend to blur together.
• Muro Ointment: Luna gets one little strip of Muro ointment in her left eye each day.  I usually do this right before bed.
• OptixCare Ointment:  Luna can get this ointment up to 3 times a day in her right eye.  It is a lubricant and its main purpose is to keep her eye moist.  I always give her this before bed and only if her eye is looking really dry during the day.  I prefer to use the Genteal drops during the day as they are easier to administer, but she has been doing a good job and I haven’t had to give her many moistening drops during the day.

Luckily, the drop schedule remained the same with our last visit to the eye doc.  The hardest part is getting down a new schedule.  It can get quite confusing as to which drop goes in which eye and how many times a day and all that stuff.  When her drop schedule changes, I usually have to make a spreadsheet so that I can make sure I get it right and learn the correct routine.  It takes me a good week, to get a new routine down.  Luckily, we have this routine down to a science as she has been on it for several months.

If your pug is on any eye medications, I would love to hear your schedule.

Update:

I was also asked and forgot to mention the name of Luna’s eye doctor.  Luna sees Dr. Denis, who we really like, at Animal Eye Associates in Maitland, FL

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

It never felt so great to be wrong

Last Friday Luna had a checkup at the ophthalmologist to see how her eyes are doing.  We made a little day trip out of it, more to come on that, so Benjamin & Henry came along for the visit.  Luna tried to have Henry get the eye exam in her place, but the doctor noticed that it wasn’t little Luna on the table and Henry happily switched places with her.

Going into this appointment I was bracing myself for bad news. Luna’s eyes had been looking pretty dry to me and I thought she had a little bit more water buildup on her good eye.  But, the exam just proved that I don’t know what I am talking about.  Luna’s eyes were pretty much the same as our last visit.  Her tear production in both eyes remained the same and there was no additional water buildup.  The doctor was actually quite pleased with the condition of her eyes.  It looks like we finally found the right combination of drops to maintain the vision that she has left.  So we are going to stick to the same drop routine and Luna does not have to go back for another follow-up for 8-10 months!  We are super excited about that!  Usually, we have to go back every 4-6 weeks!

While we were at the ophthalmologist office, we also re-stocked on all her meds.  I knew we were running low on everything so I knew this visit was going to be a hard hit on the wallet.  When we were checking out, the receptionist went over what was done and the meds we were getting and said our total for today was $246.00.  Before I could process anything the words, “THAT’S IT?” immediately left my mouth.  The receptionist, who has swiped my credit card on countless occasions, chuckled saying that we got off easy on this visit.  She also told me about their new handy dandy computer system and within a few seconds was able to tell me that we have spent over $4,000 on Luna’s eyes alone in the last two years.

That’s very handy to know for budgeting purposes.  That works out to be a little over $1,000 per eye per year!

Money aside, I was very pleased with the good report that Luna got in this visit.  It has been tough trying to figure out the right combination of drops for her, but I think we finally have a routine that works.