Owned by Pugs

Wednesday, March 1, 2006

The Daily Drops

Luna getting her drops

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

Taking the hint

Benjamin, Henry & Luna giving me some clues

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!

 

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Dairy Goatee

Luna's Dairy Goatee

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.

 

Friday, February 10, 2006

Baby Gifts

Luna's Gifts

Since we have a new addition to the family, there have been some warm wishes coming our way.  A couple of people have sent cards and Luna’s aunt even sent her a darling little “DIVA” t-shirt in pink tie-dye.  She is very wiggly when she has it on but we will try to take her photo with her wearing it once she has calmed down a bit.  Thanks everyone for the good tidings!

 

Sunday, February 5, 2006

Luna’s 1st Bath

Luna's first bath

Because of Luna’s skin condition she needs to be bathed frequently with a special shampoo.  This is her first bath since we adopted her and she handled it very well.  She didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as Henry does, but she did much better than Benjamin usually does.

The bathrobe that we got her is a little bit too big, but for the most part it served its purpose.

 

Wednesday, February 1, 2006

The Big Day Continues, Part 3

Luna waiting at the door

Ah, bedtime.  Since the day had been such a whirlwind, it was nice to be ready to settle in to a good night’s sleep.  Don’t get me wrong, I was excited to have Luna home with us and thrilled to bits that she was finally here but it had been an exhausting journey today and I was ready to catch some z’s.  We all went to bed around 10 PM.  Around midnight, Luna needed to potty.  (Really, she’s not a puppy?)  So, we went outside to go potty and then there was some difficulty reclaiming favorite sleeping spots because while we were outside, Benjamin took Luna’s sleeping spot and Luna wanted it back.  No dice, Luna,  Benjamin believes he is the man of the house, hence, what he says, goes.  At last, everyone settled in and we all slept until around 5:30 AM when it was time to get up and get the day started.  They all ate breakfast and then Luna went for a walk by herself and the boys went on the second shift.  While the boys were gone, Luna waited by the door for them to come home.  It was quite sweet.  She feels like a part of the pack.  They accept her and she loves them. Their love will come soon enough.  Before you know it they will be huddled together with just their curly little tails poking out for all to see.  Today is the first day of the rest of our lives.  It is a beautiful day.

 

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

The Big Day, Phase 2

Benjamin, Henry and Luna on the chair

So, we finally got home around 5 PM.  We unloaded all the dogs, gave them some dinner, let them play in the back yard and then introduced Luna to her new forever home.  Oh boy was she fired up!  It is almost impossible for us to believe that she is 2-3 years old.  First of all she is so tiny.  She is at most a petite 12 pounds.  The boys tower over her and weigh in at the 20’s.  (Even the cat is slightly bigger than Luna.)  Not only does her size seem puppy-like but her mannerisms are puppy-like, too.  She runs hard, drinks quick, needs to use the potty with urgency and then sleeps like a log.  She is even teething a little.  She is just a burst of energy all the way around. 

Anyway, once Luna got the lay of the land, she began running circles around the boys.  So much so, in fact that no one could keep track of who was chasing who.  After that, we went for a walk around the neighborhood.  I think that was the most exhausting thing, though, because Luna has no idea of how to stay on the sidewalk during a walk.  She is off exploring and zig zagging in front of you.  (Granted, this would be sort of ok if she was the only dog out there, but there are 3 now, so it is easy to tangle leashes that way.)  But, Luna, is so eager to learn that by the end of the walk she was doing much better walking while on leash.

Finally, we got back home, watched some TV on the couch and prepared for bedtime.

 

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The Pug Blog chronicles the daily antics of Benjamin, Henry, Luna & Sol.

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