Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Recently, we were contacted by Compassionate Pug Rescue (CPR) and asked to lend a helping hand. CPR is where we rescued Luna from almost 9 years ago to the day. CPR asked if we could do a home visit on a family that lived near us. Since CPR is located in Miami (about 4 hours away) we knew logistically it was a good plan for them to "subcontract" this task. So, we did, in fact, arrange for a home visit to meet the Fuller family. The family currently has a pug and a larger mixed breed dog, as well. They spotted Frency on the CPR website though and were excited to see if they would make a good forever home for Frenchy (a pug mix).
So, we chatted by email to arrange a mutually beneficial time to meet them in person and take a peek at their home. Upon arriving, the pups greeted us a that the door. Sweet dogs that welcome company is always a good sign. We met the adults of the home, their son (a kindergartener) and a baby sitter that is a part of the family. The Fullers have an older daughter, as well, who attends college in another state so we didn't have the opportunity to say hello to her.
The Fullers have beautiful home, loving family and sweet dogs. Of course, we will partial to the pug, PJ but Bailey Lou was a real sweetie, too. Since a recent loss of puggy Tinkerbell earlier in the year, there were looking to once again become a 3 dog household. They spotted Frenchy on the CPR website, put in their paperwork and were waiting for the all clear from the home visit. We were happy to oblige and the next day they traveled far South to pick up Frenchy. I am still saying Frenchy but their intentions were to call Frenchy Shotzi instead. I am not sure if that transition has taken place yet but what I do know is that Frenchy made it back to their home and we know that they are working on settling in and getting a new routine. Frenchy already sounds like quite a handful and is an alpha female with spice! So, the transition to the new normal make take a little while.
What we are most happy for, though, is that a pug(ish) in rescue has a new forever home and that is one less dog out of foster care and into a more stable life. Cheers to the Fullers and to Frenchy/Shotzi for landing a cool pad and loving family!
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Late last week, we had a follow up appointment for Henry at his eye specialist. This is where she confirmed what we pretty much already knew. Henry's sight in his remaining eye is officially gone. The cataract that he has is "complete" and now covers his retina. While we have known that he can no longer see, it still kind of stung to hear it out loud. But it gave us a good chance to have our questions answered and clarify how we should move forward.
Henry will stay on his eye meds (Tachrilimus and Flurburprophen---don't quote me on the spellings of these). And he will actually have them 2x a day now instead of just once. The eye vet explained that he is in his most critical time right now for inflammation to occur and that we have to be diligent with his drops. If we are not, the inflammation could cause his eye to become unhealthy like the left one that had to be removed. So, of course we are like clockwork on this.
While Henry had struggled early on in his initial days/weeks of being blind, he is making pretty good progress. It is still completely heartbreaking when he bumps into walls or furniture, he is being better about taking it in stride, and thus, so are we. But geez, when he nails into a wall and you hear that thud, ugh, the stomach just curdles. It's not so bad if he bumps into a soft furniture item but a wall is just so much harder and jarring. Oy. Nonetheless, he is being a little trooper. And his anxiety seems to also somewhat improving. (He's still not Xanax free but we are working on getting him there.)
We told the eye vet that the day that Henry was going to have his cataract surgery that he actually had his seizure that day. She agreed that it was the right thing to have cancelled that and that we likely dodged the most serious bullet of all. That Henry likely would not have made it through surgery had he had cataract surgery and then seized. And even if he did make it that the longer effects would have been much more serious. So, we are thankful to just have Henry here with us. Alive and as well as he can be. Albeit blind, but otherwise perfect.
As always, #HenryStrong #HenrySmart #TeamHenry
Monday, February 2, 2015
Looking forward to your captions in the comments.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
On a recent post about giving Henry a red chewy in honor of a Full Moon for Luna, OBP reader, Nancy suggested that we all embrace our own red chewy during full moon times. She suggested a red licorice stick. We thought this was such a super cool idea, we did indeed invest in red chewies for us, too. So, come the next full moon, we are prepared.
Thanks for the great idea, Nancy. We love having inventive ways to celebrate our pugs of past and present.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
As you saw last week about the mini picket fence modification that we set up so that Henry can be a little safer from the agave plant, you are noticing some of the modifications that we are setting up to keep him safe and help him navigate. And for those of you out there who are giving our home owners association the benefit of the doubt for having heart, I urge you not to be so kind. Sorry, but our HOA has been described as ruthless. There is much truth in that, so we are hoping that the mini fence will be overlooked and bigger issues in the neighborhood will addressed instead. If they saw how we rigged the contraption preventing Henry from falling into the pool, they would likely put a for sale sign in front of our house as their request for us to be banished from their community. Yikes!
Anyway, we have made another slight modification in order to help Henry navigate getting in and out of the front door. We read about marking the area with scented oils. (And I addressed this in a comment a short time ago---scents to avoid for seizure dogs are Rosemary and Pine. I remembered Pine off the top of my head but had to go back and refresh my memory by consulting the book.) So, in efforts to help guide Henry closer to our front door (and not the garage, agave or bougainvillea plants) we have applied little felt patches that have scented oils applied. We are not ones to have perfume, cologne, air fresheners, etc so choosing a scented oil bordered on the impossible for us. We finally settled for the scent of Ylang Ylang (don't quote me on the pronunciation but I think it's spoken: E-lawng E-lawng) but I do know that it is a yellow flower and that was fitting since our home is a sunny yellow.
The scented pads seem to be helping Henry just a little bit. Nothing dramatic yet but we have noticed that he is not the speedy learner he once was so we continue to go at his pace. Slowly. Or, EASY, as the command we use to let him know to slow down (as some obstacle is upcoming). So, we try to reinforce his positive progress and overlook his mistakes and just take thinks day by day. One of the funny things, though, is that you can tell he has brushed himself against the little stinky pads a time or two because now it is not unusual for the top of his head to smell like Ylang Ylang. I guess the more practice he gets, the less likely he will be to bump into the the little smelly disks.
We tried making the doggy door another (different) scent but then Cupid stopped using the doggy door and demanded that we start opening and closing the slider for her. Since Henry still does that pattern pretty well, we removed the Lemon Blossom stink pads from the doggy door flaps and went back to their original state. If we see that Henry needs help later with that pathway, we will choose a Cupid approve scent before trying there again. You know what they say, "You can't please everyone!" There should be a qualifier that follows that statement that specifies, "especially when there is a cat involved!" 
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Last week, on the holiday Monday, Henry had a big day! First, we took a long walk around our neighborhood. He is working on navigating his way around again now that he cannot see. While his pace was pretty slow, we are so proud of him since he finished the whole walk without getting confused, having to be carried or even getting frustrated. The walk, that would have taken the 3 puggers about 20 minutes to complete back in the day, took him about one hour but boy oh boy were we ever proud of the little man. He did a bang up job.
After that we had to run to the vet's office to pick up some refills of a couple meds he was running low on. Then, it was on to go get gas. It was our lucky day! It was a mere $1.99 a gallon. So, we got a fill up for $17.47. Woohoo! The next stop was the car wash. (It had been a while since the car had been washed so we really could not put that off any longer or we'd have neighborhood children finger painting in the dirt the words, "wash me!")
Finally, once home post errands, there was yard work to be done. It was at this point that Henry had decided that he had had enough. He parked himself inside and napped as the people tended to the outdoor tasks. Even though he didn't pull any weeds, or even so much as "water" the lawn, he still had a big productive day (and a long rest time after that).
He is a good good boy. #HenryStrong
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
This week, I am on a work trip. Every year my company has an annual work conference. What I am about to say may give you all the wrong impression. This year, the venue was a Royal Caribbean cruise. It was not a vacation. We work from sun up to sun down and the reason that we go on a cruise ship is because the room and board is considered cheap in comparison with us going to some random city, getting hotel rooms and then meals for +/- 30 staff members. It is all right there. All at hand. And the fact that you really cannot contact your family means that this is good "team building" and "work time" even if it makes us all crazy. So, really, believe me. This was no vacation.
In any event, this left the other OBP parent home alone. Sadly, Henry is now more than one working class stiff can handle alone. His needs are great. So, G'Ma and G'Pa drove down from Maryland and have stepped up to fill in gaps in care where Henry needed the extra help.
While we have Grammy locally, Grammy is far too busy of a woman to give practically all day every day to Henry. Grammy has 3 kitties, a husband and many hobbies and interests that take much of her time. Plus, this would be a good time to give Grammy some time off from her Henry duties for a little while.
So, semi-retired G'Ma and freshly retired G'Pa journeyed down again from the North to give Henry the time and attention he needs and deserves. They had a nice week. It was a quiet week but Henry had someone there all day every day. And even though I was gone, Henry's anxiety did not spike severely. We have shared about how he's been struggling with anxiety as of recent but that seems to be improving.
During my work week on the ship, Henry was able to sleep in a little later, take a short morning walk and have a little more wake time during the day. This helped him to stay asleep through most of the night. Of course, he got up 2x in the middle of the night on the night when there was a steady rain. Ugh. So, that meant towel drying a pug a 1:20 AM and 3:40 AM only to have the damp boy hug up to you in the people bed right after. But other than that, Henry had good days with the relatives.
I am back on land and with my sea legs hung up until next year. There was nothing better than coming home to your blind furry old man and seeing his tail wag like a big out of control windshield wiper. And if I haven't mentioned in a while, did you know that Henry IS SUCH A GOOD BOY?!
#HenryStrong #GoodBoyHenry #TeamHenry #ThankYouGMa #ThankYouGPa #IMissedHenryThePug #HenryIsSuchAGoodBoy
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