Wednesday, May 26, 2010
One good thing to come out of Monday's sedation/surgery is that Benjamin got a very good toenail clipping. There was no fight, no fuss, no Cheerio negotiations, no "We'll do the back ones another day". Just a nice, short toenail trimming. However, I'm sure he is expecting some Cheerio back pay.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Yesterday, we dropped Benny at the vet to have a chest x-ray taken. Benny, has been coughing every now and again and after Solsey's chronic cough we are paranoid whenever one of the pugs coughs. So, last week we made an appointment to talk to our vet. We explained the situation and our paranoia and our vet thought that the best course of action would be to bring Benny in one morning and they could lightly sedate him and get a good chest x-ray to see what was going on.
Funny side note, Solsey never needed to be "lightly sedated" for her x-rays. She was such a good girl that they could just plop her down and she would remain completely still while they did the x-rays.
Benjamin also had a bump on his chest that we showed our vet during our appointment. He said while Benny was sedated he would take a better look and possibly aspirate it to find out what was going on.
So, we dropped Benny off yesterday morning for his procedures, hoping to find out what was causing the tickle in his throat from time to time.
Just before lunch, I got a call from the vet. I thought it was a bit early for Benny to be finished, but I thought maybe they were just running ahead of schedule. Instead of it being a vet tech, it was my vet on the other line. As soon as I heard his voice, I got nervous. The vet never calls just for an update. Sensing my nervousness, he quickly reassured me that Benny was lightly sedated and doing OK. However, they aspirated the growth on his chest and had a look at it under the microscope and it is a mast cell tumor.
My stomach sank.
Since it was a mast cell tumor, my vet wanted to put Benny completely under and remove it and get it sent off for testing. I gave the go ahead and yesterday, Benny had the tumor removed from his chest.
The incision runs vertically on his chest and is closed with 10 stitches. It is in a really awkward spot to bandage, so the vet told us to keep Benny in a t-shirt to help keep the wound clean.
Benny is still pretty wiped out from his big day, so it is a little too early to tell if he is in much pain. After we got him home, we tried to set him up on one of the dog beds, but he wanted to be on the sofa. So we made him a nice little place to rest on his favorite spot on the sofa. He has been comfortably resting ever since.
In the meantime, the waiting game has begun. We could have the pathology results back as early as Friday, but more than likely we won't know anything until after the holiday weekend.
Needless to say, I am sick with worry. We don't have a great track record of getting good news with pathology reports. However, I am hoping that our luck will change.
As far as the chest x-rays are concerned, Benjamin's trachea looks very good as do his lungs. However, his soft palette is elongated. This is the most likely culprit of his cough. So, after we know the pathology results and he chest incision has fully recovered it is off to the specialist to have his soft palette shortened.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Benjamin has a bit of an obsession with ping pong balls. He has been this way since he was a pup. Playing with a ping pong ball is the closest Benny comes to fetching. Toss the ball across the living room, making sure it takes a few wild bounces, and Benny happily bounces behind it, jumping and bumping into things.
Once he finally tracks it down, he rarely picks it up on the first attempt. Instead, in his excitement, he attempts to pick it up, but it just bounces away. Not at all discouraged, Benny goes bounding after it and keeps at it until he finally picks it up. With the ball in his mouth, he runs back to you and gets sorta close before he drops it and is ready for you to throw it again.
We repeat the whole process again and play our little game until Benny inevitably crushes the ping pong ball and it thuds instead of bouncing.
Friday, May 21, 2010
The other night we went to the park for our evening walk. It was a gorgeous evening so the park was quite busy. There were lots of joggers, walkers, dogs and kids running about. We meandered around the small lake stopping every once in a while to talk to those who passed by. When we reached a nice shady section, we took a little break to let the pugs cool off and to give us a chance to just relax and enjoy the view.
Have a great weekend! I hope everyone has a chance to relax and enjoy the view.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
I have been trying to work on capturing action shots of the pugs to help improve my photography skills. Well, that, and my collection of photos of the pugs sleeping or being lazy is getting out of control.
While my skills as a photographer haven't really improved, I have been getting a good laugh at some of the photos I have been taking. Today's photo is a prime example.
I have found that the best way to get the pugs to "do something" is to play our treat catching game. The game never disappoints as it always gets the pugs moving and me laughing.
In this case, we have Henry intently focused on catching a treat I just tossed in the air. The focus, and the touch of crazy in his eyes just kills me. And Henry subscribes to the theory that the pug waits for no treat. His technique is not to wait for the treat to get to him, but to jump up and snag it out of the air.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
I must admit, in Benjamin's old age he has become quite a rule follower. When he was a pup I thought he would be impossible to train. But once he learned a command, he really mastered it. Henry would always learn a new command or trick first, but you could always count on Benny to perfect it.
Take the command "come" for example. Henry learned it way before Benny even had a remote clue of what we were trying to get him to do. But call out the word "Come" at some random point in the day and you will get Henry about 80% of the time. Benny, on the other hand, will run over, full steam ahead, every time. Without fail.
The other night I had a good laugh at Benny and his follow the rules self. We were going out, so I told the pugs to go to bed. They ran off to their crates and I was giving Benny his treat for going to bed when we fumbled the exchange and the treat bounced onto the floor and about a foot away from Benny's crate.
The crate door was still open and being the treat lover that he is, Benjamin craned his neck as far out from the crate door as he possible could, but there was no way he was going to be able to reach the treat. He stepped as far forward as he possible could in his crate and craned his head out the door one more time to try and reach the treat. Again, the treat was too far away.
Then he looked up at me with a look of sheer panic on his face. In his compartmentalized, command filing brain, he knew he needed to be in his crate to be eligible to receive a go to bed treat. If he left his crate, he couldn't eat the treat. A true conundrum for rule following Benny.
Meanwhile, I am watching all of this unfold and I am shocked. I knew that he was a stickler for the rules, but even this is surprising me because food is involved and Benny is all about rounding up fallen kibble.
So, I told him to go "take it." He looked at me and again I told him to "take it." He ran out of his crate, grabbed the treat and then ran back into his crate as fast as his little legs could take him. I closed the crate door and he settled with a look of relief and a touch of guilt on his face.
For all his crazy antics, Benny is a very straight-laced pug. He takes the rules very seriously.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The Preakness was just run in my home town of Baltimore, MD. The pugs saw the race and thought they would hold a contest of their own
Right out of the gates, Little Luna is in the lead, followed closely by Baby Benny and Dawdling Doody is bringing up the rear.
It was a close race, but Luna won it by half a pug length.
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