Henry has taken up chewing again every now and then. There are still a handful of chewy sticks in his toy bin that he's taken a liking to. Again, while this is not ideal for his belly issues, it truly helps his PM anxiety issues and for his head, chewing out his stress seems a lot better for him than pacing which does not seem to take the edge off him the way a good chewy stick does. He also seems to walk around with it in his mouth as much as he ever did, too. The boys used to do this when they were younger. Benjamin & Henry often were in sync when it came to chewing. They would both have a bone and when they tired of that specific bone they would look at each other and switch. If, however, they were not ready to switch and the other one seemed to be ready, the not ready to switch one would take their bone to another spot to chew (often where the other could not be seen). Sometimes, they would need a drink of water and not want to give up their bone, so they'd bring the bone to the water bowl, drop it right next to the bowl, keep one eye on it while lapping up their beverage and then pick up the bone after they quenched their thirst. If the other attempted to snag the bone while the other was lapping water, the water drinker would for sure stop short, give the bone thief some lip and pick up the bone that they had left. Leaving the pug ready to switch chewies with the same old chewy he had been chewing (and an exercise in patience).
While Henry is no longer in danger of losing his chewy stick, he still carries it around with him when not actively chewing. We think that maybe he realizes that even though no one is going to snag it, he may either forget where he put it or put it down and not be able to get back to it because he cannot see exactly where he put it. So, he just keeps it near until he's done with it. Whatever the reason, it for sure never gets old to us to see him walking around with a chewy hanging out of his mouth.
For the stalkers out there, we have changed our walk schedule and now we are unpredictable! LOL! But included in our nightly walk rotation, the local Petco is a top favorite of Henry's. It is well lit, has "wide sidewalks" and lots of good smells. It doesn't hurt that every once in a while he comes home with a special treat. On one recent trip Henry was knocking over EVERYTHING on EVERY low shelf possible. It started in the fish department where he knocked the fake plants off the shelf. Then he moved to the cat area where the next items to topple were grow your own catnip containers and a few anti-urine bottles. He finally made his way to the doggie aisles where he knocked off dog biscuit boxes by the dozen. Peep #2 was letting Henry explore as Peep #1 became a valued Petco team member and began reassembling the store (in some cases leaving it better that Henry found it!).
It did not even dawn on us to try to record Henry's wreckage of the store. Honestly, we were too busy laughing and laughing so hard that was not only Henry's mess that almost needing cleaning up! We almost left a clean up of the wet variety we were laughing so hard! At last it dawned on us that we should capture this for the blog! (So many things like this come to us as an afterthought! After 10 years of blogging, one would think we would be more cognizant of such events!)
Finally we pulled ourselves together and managed to start recording. Well, what does the little stinker do? Make us look like total liars and go down aisle by aisle and not knock one single thing over! We truly wonder if Henry has all his faculties and can understand every word we say. Literally, as soon as we hit record he sniffed around like he was the ideal shopper. Go figure! So here is the video clip of him being a good boy. He did get a beef esophagus that day (which will likely be another blog unto itself. There is kind of a story behind it.)
Another side note....there were 2 ferrets there for the longest time. We were happy to learn that they got a home together just in time for Christmas.
This week's ask question comes from Martha. Martha wants to know what the deal is with pug paws! Why do pugs seem to be so offended, scared, sensitive on their feet? While we have no good answer for her, we will admit that we were warned when the boys were young pups that we should touch their feet all the time in order to get them used to it and that we would mightily regret it if we did not get them used to it. While we probably did not do our best to heed this warning, we also did not ignore it. The feet of our pugs has varied.
We had Benny who truly did hate to have his feet touched and toenails clipped or filed. Henry was not quite as bad and was way better with the grinder than the clippers. Sol who did not love it and by the looks of her toenails when she came to us, toenail trimming was completely foreign to her. Luna was the worst though. She would literally run and try to hide when she realized it was toenail time. Eventually she got to be ok with the clippers but would tremble with fear if the deed was done using grinders. So later in life (after discovering that the clippers were her preference) it was only the clippers for her.
Pug paws in your neck of the woods....feedback please. What have you found?
Near the play place where Henry met a fake, but yet friendly frog, there is a small bridge on which young children play. Even though it was kind of a sick sense of humor thing to do, we decided to get his photo on the bridge with the caveat that if/when we share it, it is with the clear understanding that this in no way intended to be compared to the Rainbow Bridge. This is a little mini bridge that we feel has represented 2014 for Henry and now that he can cross this little bridge demonstrates his fortitude!
So merely a little visual analogy in Henry's life. He's crossed many a bridge, but fortunately we feel we are still far the final one. #HenryStrong HenryStrongIn2016
Well, we are still working on getting Henry back to his schedule. We had a big staycation over the holidays! G'Ma and G'Pa were here for a bit. And the peeps were off most of that time and thru January 4th, too. While we tried to keep Henry on some sort of schedule, the fact is that someone was always with Henry during that time. And now he has to tough it out home alone for a few hours each day. Let's just say that is not the lifestyle he has become accustomed to living. So, we are back to the old grind and working him back into an uncomfortable state of affairs. He is trying hard, though. The first few days were pretty rough (and I must say very sad to watch on the camera as he raced around the house "looking" for anyone to be home, barking with some panic at the sofa for someone to be there to pet him and them grumbling with displeasure as he realized that no one was in the office chair either.
You could literally see the lightbulb go off in his head when he not only realized that he was (cue the theme music---dunt dun dun) ALONE! It was somewhat relieving, however, to also see him work on his problem solving and coping skills. He went to the laundry room door where he knows Grammy pops up when she gets there. He raced to the front door to try to catch the reflections of light that he depends upon to alert him to someone coming in the driveway/garage. So, back and forth he went. He was indeed somewhat frantic the first day (or 4) but I write with the knowledge that we see each day getting better and the faith that he will continue to progress back to his old routine in a short while. In the meantime, stay strong Henry! You've got this buddy. #HenryStrong
Over the long holiday vacation Henry got to visit his eye vet. We had noticed that Henry's eye has been a little irritated lately. (Uh....obviously it is from him hanging his head out the window and getting his smells on! None of this is vet approved, of course!) The proof was in the pudding, sadly. We did earn a sideways thumb (not a thumbs up or a thumbs down) for Henry's eye health. Henry did not have any "problem" seemingly from his car rides but his cornea was not in tip top condition. The vet does think that this may actually be a side effect of one of his meds and directed us to change up his eye drop schedule a bit.
So, we will adjust his eye meds for the next few weeks and take another trip back to the eye vet and see if the change in meds helped. (In the mean time, we are looking into doggy goggles for him so as to do a better job protecting the one eye that Henry has left) We once had goggles for him but there was no real need for them then. Henry was not quite the head out the window dog back then. (Benny would have had cardiac arrest watching Henry hang out the window! Henry respected Benny's needs for both of their own safety. But now, no Benny, no window worries for H!) In any event, we will be exerting a little more due diligence as related to Henry's eye safety.
We are still catching up from the holiday madness and by the end of this week, we hope to have some posts with a some teeth! But for now, here is a post that just shows off Henry's teefers. Aw! Little pug teeth are just the cutest, eh?
