Monday, December 12, 2011

Tree Trimming

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.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Have Puff Will Travel

We kicked butt with Christmas shopping last weekend which meant that this week was full of wrapping. And you know the pugs have to supervise. So, Luna, insisted I put her bed on the pool table I setup as my wrapping table. She made sure that no present went without a little bow or holiday cheer

Have a good weekend!

Thursday, December 8, 2011

A Baby Benny Follow Up

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, December 7, 2011

Talk Amongst Yourselves

From time to time the pugs have a little fireside chat amongst themselves. Benny didn't go full howl on this one, but you can hear a little bit of his patented howl. And the pug with the menacing growl heard in the background. Well, that's Luna.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Caption This #217

Looking forward to your captions in the comments.

PS: For the curious, this crazy cone did not last long. A day tops and then it was back to the old school cone of shame.

Friday, December 2, 2011

King of the Yard

It is that time of the year in FL where the weather is much friendlier to pugs. As a result, Henry loves to hang out in the yard. And, as you can see, he really makes himself comfortable while he is out there.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

How Far She Has Come

As I read the comments for the From Zero to Twenty blog post, I was somewhat surprised. There were many well wishers and congratulators offering OBP kudos for Luna’s success in her tear production and eye health. It really got me thinking.

I guess we should be more proud of this than we are. When Luna started as a zero, we just sort of expected that in no time she would be fine. That we would just find the right vet, follow the prescribed guidelines and before we knew it, she’d be fine.

So, while that is what we did and this was the end result, we really hadn't taken any time to reflect or evaluate just how amazing this result is or how far she has actually come. And since we just assumed our efforts would pay off, it never even crossed our minds that she was "beyond repair". So, we never then appreciated her progress.

Thinking about how far Luna has come, what popped out first was a memory of her first trip to the dog beach. The boys were so excited,but she was a nervous wreck. The boys ran scampering down the boarded walkway and thumped down the steps leaping down the oversized last step down to the beach itself.

Then there was Luna. She anxiously coursed her way down the boarded path, screeched her brakes at the top of the steps and then reluctantly forged her way down the steps feeling each step as she plopped down them. When she got to the very last step which was a good foot and half from the beach, she took a leap of faith which did not pay off. She immediately face planted into the sand. This caused her whole face (eye balls included) to be covered in sand. She was a mess. She was frantic. She couldn’t see, was covered in sand, completely uncomfortable and at the time she still did not trust us very much.

Anyway, since her eyes were so dry getting the sand off them was a task in and of itself. We did manage to wash away the grit and she ended up having an ok time but it is definitely one of those moments that sticks with a person.

There was also the growth that she had on her eye that needed to be removed. And there was also at least 10 different combinations of eye meds that we tried until we found the (DUH) winning recipe. We kept spreadsheets so that we could track of it all. Now we have the routine memorized. We used to have to go back to the eye vet every 3 months. This visit they told us that they won’t need to see her for another 10-12 months! That is truly incredible.

Thanks to the OBP readers for their support and positive commentary in pointing out some of the things that we simply have taken for granted in the OBP household. Without your kind words, I likely would not have taken the time to reflect and be proud of the improvements little Luna has made.