Monday, August 24, 2015

Ask OBP #5

Thank you all for coming up with good questions! Hopefully Ask OBP will continue for a little while longer!

The first series of questions comes from Terry. Terry asked: Do/did your pugs growl? If yes, what would make them growl? Did aging affect their tail curls both in tightness of curl and how often they kept them curled? And if they shed their whiskers.

Terry! All great questions! We are happy to answer them all. First, yes, our pugs have growled. They were not big growlers though. Mostly, as puppies, the boys (Benjamin & Henry) would growl at each other during play. They also made some other more hideous noises for the first few years when they wrestled together. Often sounding like gremlins! As they got older (4+) they no longer really growled very often. The girls, however, were later life growlers. Solsey came to us as an old gal and we only ever heard her growl on a few rare occasions. And I will say that on those couple of times Solsey was out of her mind! It was usually when each pug was given a very special chew treat (most notably a knuckle bone). Solsey not only tried but successfully bullied all of the pugs into giving up their knuckle bones. Solsey's growling during one especially memorable incident had baby Benny cowering in another room! So, yeah, she growled. And when she growled everyone knew she meant it! Luna, on the other hand, had a petite growl (and really more during her middle years), She would have a sweet little growl leading up to a bark. This was typically an indication of her impatience. And like a warning. She would give a little growl to say, "if you don't [do X] then I will be letting out a piercing bark after this." Hopefully we would do X before the bark but we never seemed to be quick enough. But other than that, Luna was not much of a growler.

Regarding their tail curls....we can safely say that indeed with age, their tails loosened in tightness a bit. This did vary by pug though. Henry's became much looser. Luna's was somewhat looser but not extremely loose. And Benny's was barely looser. (Think of the 3 bears but with levels of looseness.) I cannot really comment on Sol's tail since we had her for so short a period of time. If I am being honest, though, I am not entirely sure that it was "age" that created this phenomenon, though. I think it had more to do with their level of discomfort (which aging may have brought along). Such as the week of Henry's kidney cancer surgery, I can't say that his tail was curled for one moment that entire week. And the more exhausted he is, the less his tail is apt to curl. With that said, Henry has always had the less curly tail. I also want to make another comment not so much about the curliness but the wagginess of Luna's tail. I don't think that I am exaggerating when I say that Luna's tail wagged most of the whole first year we had her. Even in sleep early on, her tail would have some movement to it. We are confident that this was not a sign of pug happiness but of anxiety. Eventually Luna learned that she was safe, secure and could bloom into the little diva she knew had been hidden until then.

Ah, yes. Their whiskers. There would be a rare whisker shedding with the pugs. This was quite uncommon. Sadly, though, all of Henry's whiskers fell out during his chemo treatments. They did grow back eventually though. He had 2 gray whiskers that fell out but all the fresh whiskers grew back black. So, that was interesting. We see more cat whiskers shed from Cupid than pug whiskers shed. These are easy to tell apart, of course since the cat's whiskers are white whereas the pug whiskers are black (except for those 2 gray ones that Henry lost).

Outstanding questions, Terry! They really caused us to reflect. Thank you.

Another OBP reader, Jude, asked this (paraphrased): If we were not pug/cat people what would our next breed choice be? WOW! Good one, Jude! We have been discussing this among ourselves A LOT lately. We are all over the map (and a bit divided.) One of us may never stray from the pug breed and the other one of us thinks that there may be "healthier breeds" that may not give us quite as much heartache (but maybe also not as much joy). But to answer our top "other" choices we would include (and I cannot narrow down a specific order): Poodle, Golden Retriever, Chinese Crested (bald kind), Great Dane, Boston Terrier just to name the most talked about. As for cats, I think I can safely say that Cupid has ruined us for any other cat on the planet. Reflecting on that statement, it sounds like the pugs are more "replaceable" which could not be further from the truth. Hmmmm. I am not sure what exactly that means! Jude, you have given us a great conversation in house! We thank you for your question!

Christine also had a question for us. It was about nicknames for our brood. Oh boy! Do we ever have nicknames! We will begin with Sol. We regularly called her Solsey. A time or 2 we called her Solei Moon Frye (which is the name of the person who played Punky Brewster). But mostly we called her Solsey Baby! (This would be spoken in a specific tone and rhythm, too.) That was really it for her, though.

For Luna we mostly called her Looney (again in a specific pitch and song). And honestly, unless you called her that way, she did not know her real name was Luna! But some of her other names included: Looney Toons, Miss Thang and Baby Girl.

Benjamin probably has the most nicknames. He was Baby Benny. Benny Bag O'Wrinkles, Handsome, Hansey Boy, Ben Ben and Benny Boy. The most special time we remember him responding to a nickname was once post anesthesia and he was still bleary eyed and wobbly legged. They brought him into the exam room and we greeted him with a "Hi Handsey!" and he immediately gave a huge tail wag and ran right towards us, licking our faces and whining. It was super sweet.

Henry has had his fair share of nicknames too. He is Henry doodle boy. Doody boy. Hanky Doodle. Hank. The Hankster. Gangster Prankster. And yes, sadly now we sometimes even call him Blindy. But it is with much affection. Or as GMa says, she "means it in the nicest way."

While this is about the pugs, we feel like if we left out Cupid we would be doing her a disservice. She is Cupey, Cupey Cat. QP. Pretty Girl. Pretty Pretty Girl. And on days that she tries to steal Henry's food lately, she is little brat.

Thanks again, Christine! Another good question!