Henry has gotten in the bad bad habit of wanting breakfast a few hours before actual wake up time. Just so that we can peacefully rest the last couple of hours of sleep, we have begrudgingly obliged. He additionally, has started to consider ANY time right after he wakes up as another meal time. He can be very convincing. He will just stand at his food spot and stare at the wall patiently waiting for his meal. He would stand there for A LONG time if you let him. We try to get his mind off the meal that he is envisioning in his head. Sometimes he will NOT wait patiently and if he is actually pretty hungry, he will bark a bark of desperation as if to say, "you're letting me starve?!" It is obviously all in his head. He is well fed. No doubt about that. Just more blind dog antics.
It is well known that Cupid has had her ups and downs in the behavior department. She can antagonize Henry, be a pole dancer, spit at a toddler or be charming and chatty and drooling with love. It is times when we see her in sweet sleep, with her little paws all curled up that we just look at her and think, "aw!" Then we mumble, "deceiving little devil!"
A short time ago, we posted about Henry being a daredevil. He walked on the border of a steep drop off at the edge of the Halifax River. Well, it was low tide during that visit. The low water level exposed the sharp shells on the bottom of the river. Well, on the same night that we went moon viewing (which was actually about a week before the Blood Moon/Lunar Eclipse letdown), we took this photo of Henry. Again, he is teetering with disaster. This time, however, there are more factors going against him but some going for him. The worrisome factors would be the fact that the darkness was falling fast and the winds were quite gusty. The high tide, however would be a good thing. If he fell in, he would fall into water and not on jagged debris. He can sort of swim and we can swim and he would still be on a leash so we could pull him to safety. Landing in water would have been way safer if he fell, though. Bur for Henry, his "living on the edge" style of life over the last year or so has us going gray with worry.
Henry still has a lust for life but just doesn't get any possible consequences. He's a wild one. #HenryStrong
Welcome back to Ask OBP. We have been asked by Christie if we sing songs to the pugs. And it was both comical and shocking to learn that a few of you sing the same song to your pugs! You are my pugshine has seemed to be a chart topper with our readers! That is amazing!
We can safely say that we pretty much have never sang lullabies to the pugs. Sorry to disappoint, but we were not part of the Pugshine bandwagon. Of course, there were a few obvious songs that we have sung to them, however. As you may recall, they were Benny and the Jets for Halloween one year. We would regularly screech out the wails of Elton John's popular tune. The pugs were not a fan of this, but Benny did seem to know it was all about him and it was ok with him if we were pitchy.
Another likely obvious song we would sing to Henry would be 'Enery the 8th. This was an oldie but goody. And even though it is now racially outdated and inappropriate, we used to belt the chorus of Brother Louie to Luna except we replaced Louie Louie Louie Louie with Looney Looney Looney Looney.
Most recently we have The Heart of Rock and Roll is Still Beating where we have updated the lyrics to be The Heart of Hanky Doo is Still Beating.
I must also confess, that I have a soft spot for Paula Abdul's Forever Your Girl. That's kind of a love song that Luna and I have to each other. The song is special because we always called Luna "girl" as in "Hey, Girl!" or "Hey, Girl, Hey!" And Luna was SO loyal that it just seems to fit.
A while back, when Benny, Henry and Luna were all youngsters, we made little video montages to You've Got a Friend in Me and You're My Best Friend. We also did one for Luna using Pretty Woman. So those songs stuck and we were know to serenade the pugs to one of those tunes now and then.
I realize that this means that Solsey never got a song of her own. If we were a member of the Pugshine club, we may have sang it but to the lyrics You are my Solshine. Sadly, this never, pardon the pun, dawned on us. #ba-dump-bum
Christie, you are a question workhorse out there! We love answering your questions. And Christie, we will answer the one about hair licking next week (sorry for the delay). Is anyone else going to follow Christie's lead and ask questions? Ask OBP can only live as long as we have something to answer. I know there has been a sprinkling of other questions, but you have to give it to Christie for carrying the team. #wink
The night of 9/27 was to be a blood moon and a lunar eclipse. The next one not until 2033. Our weather was terrible. We saw beautiful Luna rise and got to observe her for a few precious minutes but after that everything went south. The clouds thickened and then at prime time we actually had a massive rain shower. So, it was all for nothing. Please feel free to share your observations if you were lucky enough to catch the spectacular event.
The photo shown is of Henry a few days before the moon got it's biggest. It was a still an overcast and windy night but Henry was happy to be out and about.
Cupid is starting to get as bad as Henry in the department of wanting her people to be home. She likes us to be home. She's not one of those aloof type cats. It is not enough that only one of us is home, they like us both to be home. So, when only one of us is home, the waiting game for the other one of us begins. Both Cupid and Henry take their spots and watch out the window. Cupid still has all her faculties. She can see, hear, smell, talk. So, she is fully functioning. While Henry has poor hearing and no real vision to speak of, he can see lights and shadows. So, he totally knows when a car pulls into the driveway. It that happens during the day, Henry can tell because the way the car and the sun cause reflections. If it's at night, he can tell headlights shine through the darkness. Thus, Henry knows what to be on the look out for. There are times when this becomes problematic, though. If our next door neighbor comes home in the evening, his car lights can reflect to give the impression that it's an OBP peep. Or in the daytime sometimes, someone might pull into the driveway to drop a package or turn around or something but if they come in the driveway, Henry still knows and then expects a peep or a visitor.
Since Cupid can see, she knows the difference. She gets all, "stupid dog" on Henry when he gets worked up over a false alarm. You can see that Cupid gets the prime spot and Henry is relegated to the less desirable location while the cat is standing guard. These creatures just love their peeps being home, though.
Even though Henry has not enjoyed any other chewy stick besides the ones that were Luna's favorite, we have kept a variety in the pugs's toy bin within Henry's reach just in case he ever became interested once again. Low and behold, the boy started to show some interest a few weeks ago. It started with him just sniffing in the bottom tier of the toy bin. Then a few days later he pulled out a chewy and just carried it around with him. The day after that he gave the stick a few licks and then a half-hearted chew. A few more days passed and no interest. But then a another day or two later, he pulled out a different chewy stick and just went to town on it! He was so pleased with himself. Also, back to old school days, he preferred someone to hold it steady for him while he chewed. We were happy to oblige. (I know! The boys are such babies and needed us to hold their chewies. Luna and Sol were self sufficient since we did not spoil them rotten in their youth.)
Henry chewed the stick until it was gone. It took him about an hour. That is about 55 minutes longer than it takes him chew the kind that Luna preferred. The problem is this: Henry really should not be chewing ANY sticks. They are not good for his IBD and thus can be really bad for him by inhibiting his protein absorption. But giving him a longer lasting chewy stick totally helps to alleviate his nervous energy and in way that relieves him where medication and lavender oil does not. It works his mind and body. So, it is a tough call as how to balance it all. We know for sure that the sticks Luna loved cause him to have bad poops. Actually, from puppyhood we have referred to those chewies as diarrhea sticks since pretty much no matter what they would give the boys diarrhea. Luna must have had a stomach of lead since she never had these problems. So, we try to avoid those chew sticks for Henry, especially now. We will see how this other type of chewy plays out with Henry. So far so good now though. Poops are still holding at a 7 on a rough day and a 9 on a good day ( on a 1-10 scale where 10 is a tootsie roll and 1 is brown water). Yeah, more poop talk. Sorry.
While we are thrilled that his desire to chew demonstrates that he is coming back to his old personality and continues to have likes, interests and things that make him happy, it is truly such a double edged sword. What he loves may be his downfall. We are just trying to keep a balance and hope that it works out for the best. If we see that he's being damaged by rekindling his chewing habit, then of course we will go back to high level cautiousness but for now, we are tying to let him chew in moderation so as to let him have some balance in his life.
