You are viewing entries tagged with the keyword Henry
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
I always talk about and post pictures of Benny with his pile of pillows, but Henry knows a thing or two about making himself comfortable as well.
Henry tends to be able to settle easier in a mound of pillows than Ben. Benjamin flips and flings the pillows trying to get them just right and often times he ends up clearing all the pillows off the couch. Then he just stands there on the bare couch, staring at the pillows strewn across the floor, wondering who is going to put them all back on the sofa so he can try to make himself comfortable again.
Henry, just flops down on the pillows and has them mold to his body. In pillow wrangling and most other things in life, Henry is way more laid back than Ben.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Since the weather was so nice this weekend the pugs got to go on lots of errands with us. They love to run errands, especially ones that involve picking up lunch 
Friday, October 1, 2010
Luna might be small, but she is a scrapper. Plus, if she ever gets in over her head, she has two bros she can count on for backup.
Side Note: I will be drawing the winner of Sol's painting tonight. If you have purchased raffle tickets and have not received your ticket numbers yet, please email me (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)) or leave a comment on this post.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
The boys recently had their annual checkups and many of the things that cropped up in the exam were related to age. Since then, I have been wondering how the pugs will age. I have also been thinking about Henry and his cataracts a lot and how they will progress over time. Will they remain fairly small or will they grow and eventually take most of his vision?
I try not to spend too much time worrying about it because, ultimately, these are things out of my control. But the thought of Henry losing confidence and some of his spunk because of bad vision does worry me. Henry has always been the adventurer. The first to stray from the path, the one that always wants to go new places. I would hate to see bad vision take that spark away from him.
So rather than focus on things that I can't control or that may never even happen, I have been thinking about things that I can actually do to help.
While brainstorming, I thought of a dog I met at a dog park a few years back. I didn't meet the dog up close and personal when we first arrived. Instead, I spotted him meandering around the dog park having a good time meeting other dogs and smelling all the dog park smells. I could tell by how the dog walked that it was on the older side, but I thought it was great that the dog was at the park because it was clearly having a fantastic time.
The dog started to come my way and as it got closer I could hear someone calling out the command "Slow".
When the dog got up to me I could tell that it was blind. A few seconds after the dog arrived at me feet, I met the owner and they confirmed that the dog is blind, but gets around great by listening for verbal cues. I got to see the cues in action when a few minutes later the dog was quickly approaching a tree. The owner called out "Slow" and the sure enough the dog almost came to a complete stop, started to sniff a bit more and then found the tree without bumping into it.
What struck me the most about this dog was that it was completely comfortable in the new environment, where it does not have a good idea of the lay of the land. Plus, there were other dogs zipping around, but none of that seemed to bother the blind dog.
So, I am going to try and teach Henry some verbal commands while he still has all of his vision. That way, if the cataracts do start limiting his sight, hopefully it will be an easier transition for him.
I haven't started training yet, because I have no idea how to even start. I was trying to come up with a small list of words that would handle the most amount of situations Henry might encounter.
It's an ambition goal, but I like training with the pugs, so I figured I might as well teach them something that could possibly come in very handy later in life rather than go for something that is just cute.
I'm sure progress is going to be slow, but I'll let you know how it goes.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
As far as pugs go, Henry is longer and taller than most. At the very least, he has the distinction of being the biggest of his pack. Sometimes his size doesn't work to his advantage, but to Benjamin and Luna Henry's size gives him a super power. He can stand on his hind legs and see on to the table!
Henry seems to understand that this indeed a super power because he does not wield it very often. Instead he reserves it for extreme cases. Like when pugkin bread or noodles are just hanging out on the table. He is smart enough to know that if he used his power to peer on to the table too often, it would mean trouble. He keeps it cute by using his power only when some of his favorite things are in need of rescuing.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Over the last year, I have noticed that the top of Henry's nose is very dry and has even started to crack. Concerned that it might be a sign of a more serious issue, I talked to the vet about it during Henry's last checkup. He assured me it was nothing to be worried about and gave us KeraSolv Gel. Our instructions were to apply it to his nose once daily for the first 10 days and then as needed. Today is the one week mark and I am impressed with how quickly the gel seems to be working.
Above is a before and after closeup of Henry's nose. After a few days, the dry bits of Henry's nose actually started to fall off (gross). He isn't 100% back to normal, but a lot of the buildup has started to come off and I'm sure the rest will continue to come off over the next several days.
I'm not sure if you need a prescription for the KeraSolv gel. Ours came from our vet with a prescription sticker on it with application instructions.
Friday, September 17, 2010
After Benny was done being poked and prodded on the exam table it was Henry's turn. Henry got a little fussy when they were drawing his blood, but other than that he did OK.
My main concern with Henry was his eyes. I have noticed that he is missing a lot of treats when we play our treat toss game. I know that he has the beginnings of cataracts in both of his eyes, but it is extremely early in the process.
The vet took a look and said that it looks like the cataracts are getting a bit bigger, but again it is still early. At this point we should just keep monitoring him to see if we can pick up on any type of vision changes.
Not great news, but it certainly could be worse.
The vet also checked Henry's hips and knee to checkup on his arthritis. Henry has had a bit of arthritis in his hips since he was about a year old. The arthritis has been attributed to his hip dysplasia, but we have done a pretty good job managing it. As he gets older, we do our best to keep an eye on it because the problem is certainly not going to get better as Henry ages. The arthritis might be a tad worse than last year, but all in all Henry is doing great in that department. Henry was also down a pound which I was thrilled about. Keeping Henry at a healthy weight is pretty much the only thing we can do to help his hips and arthritis.
Another small item on Henry's list was his dry nose. Henry's nose has gotten to be extremely dry and cracked. I wasn't sure if this was a sign of some other problem, so I jotted it down on my list of things to ask the vet. The vet said that all is well and that a dry nose is just a part of aging. He gave me a gel to put on his nose to help put a little moisture back into his nose and by golly does that stuff work. Henry is almost back to his puppy nose!
Monday, September 13, 2010
On Friday, the boys had an appointment for their annual checkups. It was actually pretty good timing because the day we made the appointment, Benjamin started shaking his head. It didn't take us long to figure out that something was up with his left ear. So, I added Benjamin's ear to the list of things to discuss with the vet.
Overall, the visit went well. I will give the specifics for each one of the boys later in the week. Each has little things that are common for their age that we will need to keep an eye on, but to summarize we have two 8 1/2 year old pugs that are "looking good". The thing I can't believe is that the boys are 8 1/2 years old.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
The living room is now overrun with pillows. During the day, the couch is piled high with pillows that the pugs use in the afternoon when they nap and gaze out the front door. But, after dinner, two humans actually like to sit on the couch and unwinding on top of three pillows stacked on the couch isn't all that comfortable. Trust me, I've tried it.
So, before we settled down last night, I took some of the pillows that were on the sofa and just tossed them on the clamshell chair. Within a few minutes, Henry was leaping up to make himself comfortable on the enormous pile.
At first, I almost took one of the pillows down because the stack of 4 put Henry over the edge of the chair on the one side. It was late, I was tired and Henry is clumsy. I was certainly not up for a trip to the emergency vet and having to explain that Henry injured himself falling off a big pile of pillows. But, Henry seemed to have the situation under control, so I let him reign supreme on the ultimate pillow pile.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Things have been pretty quiet here in the OBP house. Walks are still limited because of the heat and humidity and we have been getting a lot of rain this week. Which, ultimately, is great because we can always use the rain. But, in terms of pug adventures things have been very humdrum around here. So, since we don't have any interesting stories to tell, I told the pugs they needed to dial up the cuteness until I dream up something fun for us to do and share with all the OBPers out there.
Have a great weekend everyone and don't forget about the 2011 Calendar Contest.
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