Friday, April 14, 2006
Life after claw
Life without his claw really hasn’t affected Brutus in any negative way ... I’m not sure if it’s likely to regrow or not, he has a short stub of claw sticking out now, but it’s not moving much ...
In the meantime, I’m trying to bring them (and me!) down a few pounds by walking them each morning and night, about a couple of miles. I’m getting stiffer, but they seem to be enjoying themselves!
Hopefully the weather stays cool for a while, once it gets hot, these walks will be off.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
No claw!
Tonight I tried walking the dogs on their first proper walk since Brutus’ incident with his claw. In the last couple of weeks it has grown longer, to the point we could see the break.
The first mile or so was fine. He didn’t limp or have any problems. After a while, he yellped. I looked down and it was twisted up and around. I picked him up and headed home.
At some point, the whole nail came off. Fortunately, the quick had healed up, so while that is now exposed, it’s not broken or bleeding. He quite happily trotted along once that nail had gone.
While he’s licked it a few times now, he seems in a lot less discomfort than he was earlier, so I’m very happy about that!
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Healing
Brutus’ foot is definitely noticably better today! He was running around the kitchen and back yard without any issues when we got home from work.
Looking closely at it, the broken part of the nail looks to be leave the bed of his paw, which would explain why it’s easier on him. Hopefully it’s going to get more comfortable for him!
Brutus broke a nail
We took him to the groomers last weekend along with Buddy. We knew his nails were grown a bit long, and wanted them trimming down a bit.
Unfortunately, he managed to break one in the holding cage.
Even worse, it was broken all the way in the bed. It bled quite spectacularly, apparantly.
This last few days though, he’s been enjoying lots of attention, and like a good pug, he’s milking it for all he’s worth. He runs around fine, until he sees Beth, then he limps. He won’t jump off the bed, but will hop up and down on the sofa with no problems.
The groomer didn’t touch the nail after that to trim it, we want to let it grown right out. We’re now going to be taking him back every other week for a trim, so we can get them back under control again. Hopefully when the weather warms up and the sun comes out, walking him on tarmac around the houses here will help. Right now, our back yard is frozen mud and grass, and not enough to wear nails down.
Silly pug!
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Raw egg
We’ve started giving the dogs a raw egg on their kibble, just once a week. Sundays is their egg day.
Not only do they love it, but after just two weeks of this, their coats are soft and sleek, much less wirey than it use to be.
Much nicer to cuddle 
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Crating your dog could be dangerous …
Warning, the above link is *very* sad. It makes me very glad we don’t crate Brutus. He has the run of the whole apartment.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Brutus vs The Skunk
ARGH!!!! Silly dog!!
I went to take him outside to do his business. I know there’s been a bit of rustling on the side of our house, but I haven’t really worried about it, figuring it was a neighborhood cat.
Brutus started getting a bit agitated as soon as he was by the door. I figured he just had to go really badly. But no. He runs to the side of the house, and starts woofing at something. I look around and see the skunk. I’m trying to go after him and call him back, but to no avail. He charged it. It ran behind some crates that are over there, but it didn’t matter. It shot him. The scary thing was, all it did was make Brutus annoyed and want to go after it again. I go and call and try to herd him back. The scary thing for me was seeing the skunk come back out from behind the boxes right away. I finally get him back in the house ad into the tub he went. Fortunately I had some V8 around, so I bathed him with that. (I’ve heard of the peroxide trick, but since he got shot in the face by the skunk, I didn’t think that was a good idea.) It’s also midnight, so there’s no way a pet shop would be open to get some skunk deodorizer. He never did wee.
He still wants to do another round, you can see it. I think we’ll be walking around the front from now on. Tomorrow we get the Nature’s miracle stuff and a new collar. Just thought I’d share our latest adventure!
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Monday, November 29, 2004
Pukey puppy
This morning, for no apparant reason, Brutus threw up on the fouton.
It’s odd, he hadn’t had anything to eat since his meal the night before, he had a bit of chicken from us as a snack, but he’s had that before. He was ok all night, went for his walk fine, and about 20 minutes after getting back in he gagged, threw up and carried on fine.
My guess is he gobbled something yuckey on his walk. He still has his appetite, and didn’t show signs of doing it again, so I’m chalking it up to “one of those things” and moving on
Friday, November 05, 2004
Done
Both Diosa and I have now got two seperate 24 hour animal hospitals for both Brutus and Nikki. Much happier.
Emergency preparedness …
I just read this over at Pugvillage, and it’s horrifying.
http://www.pugvillage.com/robins.htm
I hope they, or Pugzone (where it first appeared) don’t mind me reproducing it here ...
When I get home tonight, I’ll be finding our vets number and putting it in my cell phone.
A short story from one of the original PugZone* readers, Robin Saltzberg, who was the inspiration behind our emergency preparedness article:
“My husband Ron and I were sound asleep on July 6, 1999. Our 4 year old Pug, Ramsey, was sleeping quietly nestled between us as usual when I fell asleep. At about 3:30am, I awoke, feeling wetness on the bed, and hearing Ramsey gasping for air. Thinking nothing worse than he wet our bed, I turned the light on and screamed in horror. Ramsey was lying motionless in a pool of his own blood, struggling to breathe.
Ron tried to see if there was something obstructing Ramsey’s breathing while I ran frantically to the den looking for my phone book. We didn’t have our vets number memorized because Ramsey had never been sick and had only been there for regular check ups. I couldn’t find the address book anywhere. I couldn’t even think straight. Ron came rushing in with the phone book and found our vets number. He called, as I sat there in the bed crying, trying to comfort Ramsey who was by this time letting out low whines of pain.
Ron got an answering machine when he called and wrote down the number for the emergency vet. He called and was told to bring Ramsey in immediately. He got the address, not thinking to get directions. I looked at the town this vet was in and I knew how to get to the town, but had never heard of the street they were on, or how to get there. Ron called again, but the office didn’t have a good idea of where we were and how to get there from our home. She did the best she could, but we couldn’t find their building.
We drove around and around, using our cell phone to communicate our location with the vets office. “Birch Street!” the receptionist shouted over the phone, “head east 4 blocks and make a right onto Wilkes Avenue, take that straight down about 2 miles, bear left at the fork onto Lighthouse Road and you’ll see us right there on the right”.
We did as she told us to do, and screamed into their parking lot, leaving tire behind. Just as I was about to hand Ramsey over to the vet who ran to our car, Ramsey let out a loud yelp and died in my arms.
It was 4:35am.
The vet put Ramsey onto the ground right there in the parking lot and tried to revive him, but he was gone. I sat there on the ground holding Ramsey. I was crying so hard that I could barely breathe. I’m crying as I write this letter.
It has been almost a month since this awful day and I haven’t gone more than a few hours without reliving it in my mind over and over again. I don’t think I would ever get over Ramsey’s death no matter how it happened, but I can’t help thinking what if.
What if we had the vets number programmed into the phone or over the phone? What if we had known where the emergency vets office was? What if we had gotten Ramsey there in 30 minutes instead of an hour and five minutes? Would he be alive right now? Sitting on the floor next to me as I type this letter on my notebook? I should have done better for Ramsey.
PugZone? I hope you will share my story on your wonderful site so people can learn from my experience, without having to experience it themselves. If it helps one pug and their family, then putting my letter and my name out there for the whole world to read will be worth it. Thank you.
Robin Saltzberg
*Article first appeared on the original PugZone web site in August, 1999, and is republished in its original context.
Follow the steps in this article ...
http://www.pugvillage.com/emergencies.htm
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Bath time!
Brutus got his first bath from us today
It was a lot less painful than I thought it was going to be ... for the most part he just stood there and let us get on with it. I bathed him, Diosa took snaps
Isn’t he *cute*?!
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Sunday, October 17, 2004
Happy puggy
I forgot to write about some great news. He is heartworm free and was able to start the heartworm preventative. This was a huge relief for me, since I know how nasty heartworm can be for a dog. He’s also trimming down a bit. When we took him to the vet, he was 22lbs, which is a bit big, even for him. He’ll never be really small, but around 18-20lbs would be perfect. We switched him from his puppy kibble to a lo-cal dog food that he absolutely hoovers. He *loves* the stuff. And it’s starting to show results. You can see more definition in him already and it’s only been a week or so.
We officially lost the bed war. He sleeps with us now. I was the one who didn’t want him in the bed, Paul didn’t care one way or the other. But I got thinking about it from his side. Why was it ok to cuddle and sleep with his pack on the couch but not in the bed. It made no sense to me, so I relented and he started sleeping with us. Now he’s discovered the joys of being under the duvet. It’s getting cooler in the evenings, and we tend to sleep with the window open a bit, so it’s honestly a bit chilly in the room at night. One night a corner of the duvet was lifted up a bit and he crawled in and fell right asleep. He does it now whenever he can. Last night was even funnier. He started off under the covers at my feet and on my left. For most of the night he would do these cute stretches and scoot up a bit so by this morning he was up on my pillow. It was so cute I couldn’t scold him, but he did get moved down again.
Today is a local Pug social. I’m really looking forward to taking him to socialize with other dogs. There’s a group on-line who organize monthly meetings. October has two of these meetups. The first we missed, but I really wanted to go to this one. It’s also really close, it’s a beautiful day, so I can’t see why this won’t be fantastic. Besides, he needs the socialization. Brutus loves to play with dogs, and is really outgoing, but he does need to learn *how* to play with them. He tends to bark and while with smaller dogs that means play, to a bigger dog, that seems more like aggression. We’ll let everyone know how it goes.
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Saturday, October 09, 2004
First trip to the vets
Friday morning we took Brutus for his first vets visit.
http://www.northeastveterinary.com/
We took along all his papers and it looks like some stuff was up to date and fine, and other stuff wasn’t, so the vet recommended we should treat him as if he has nothing, just so we know for sure.
So, he had his legally required rabies jabs, his distemper jabs, his “kennel cough” jab, tests for heart worm and a bunch of other stuff. He’s a little podgy, coming in at 22lbs when we’d prefer more like 18-20 lbs ... most importantly for us though, we had him microchipped.
http://www.homeagainid.com/index.cfm
He handled it all great! Taking blood made him a little bit grumpy, but he handled it all without a problem, even playing on the way out.
It’s nice to know everything is *definitely* up to date, while I was pretty sure everything was, it’s just nice to know for sure.
He’s also gotten to go play on the beach a few times this week, he loves it down there! Lots of other dogs, lots of sand to play in and he hasn’t worked out the ocean yet All this water that keeps chasing him!
Monday, September 27, 2004
Doggy docs
Diosa has just booked an initial visit for Brutus to go and see the vets a week on Friday.
Basically we want to make sure all his jabs are up to date, get him registered, get his neuter papers redone (we don’t have them), and them we can get him registered with the state. We may also look into getting him microchipped, but not all at once
The Vets came recommended by a workmate who takes her mad Greyhound there.
http://www.northeastveterinary.com/
