THE DEVIL'S TONGUE

Not much happening lately....well. let me say there HAVE been things happening, but Guardian hasn’t been doing much with Canon.  Everyone wants to SEE me and Gus, not just read about us.  That’s why it’s been a month since we’ve been posting here. So lame!

Anyway, one of our dogless neighbors, Jake, was talking a lot about a flower he has called The Devil’s Tongue.  It was really hard to imagine what he was talking about.  One flower on a long stalk, a weird purple color, and a really, really bad smell, according to humans.   I heard someone reading out loud that it "mimics the smell of a dead water buffalo."  (But I bet we pugs would find that smell YUMMY and want to roll around in it!)

When the flower came into bloom, Jake invited us over to see it.  Seeing it was even weirder than trying to picture it when Jake described it.  See for yourself!

Just to show you how freakin’ BIG and Alien this thing is, here we are next to it. I’m cringing 'cuz I didn’t want it to EAT me--which it could have done!  NO LIE!   I overheard the humans talking about how the smell attracts creatures, and sometimes they fall into that thing’s--what do I call it?...tube??   Gus doesn’t look very sure of it, either, does he? I lost any desire to roll around in it, I can tell you that!  And those are Jake's legs in the back--and he's a tall guy.  I don't know how he can sleep at night, knowing he's got the devil's tongue just waiting to swallow him up.

Would you want to tempt being sucked down into THIS!!??

A SHORT VISIT FROM DARBY

You remember our friend, Darby the Havanese?  He’s doing really well after his dog hospital visit and surgery a while back.  His Guardian, D2, doesn’t like having him on the medicine that has something called “steroids” in it.  She’s slowly cutting back on it to see what the smallest amount is that he can take and still not lose his cookies.

Anyway, he seems to have his bounce back.  He really tries to drag D2 into our house when we walk by it while we are out and about, and one day Guardian said to D2, " Let him come in and inspect our toy box."

Now, our Guardian doesn’t have a fancy picture shooter, and she’s not really too good with getting pictures without blurriness.  So, I’ve picked out the best from her lame attempts (and you can see how awful the rejects were by what I finally said OK to!) to capture Darby’s excitement.

Darby was wearing one of my Fido Fleece coats that was too tight for me (Gus and I both need the “BC” Big Chest size the Fido Fleece coats have—Guardian sometimes calls me “Mae West.”  I don’t know who or what that is, but she said it was someone with a BC, too. I wonder what breed she was?). We think it looks really classy on him.

Anyway, Guardian scattered the toys around our toy box and here’s Darby trying to decide which one he wants to attack.

 

I asked Guardian to throw some back in the box, since Darby couldn’t really decide.

  So after that, Darby was better able to choose.

 

Darby here—I’m telling Gus which ones I like best.

Jazz here…Well, I never….he’s havin’ WAY too much fun, and why am I just standing here not having fun yet?

That blurry object in the upper L corner is Darby...playing with MY toys.

 

“Oh no, says Darby.  I just got here and now I have to leave???!"

 

So here we all are, posing for that shooter.  Well, it sorta came out OK.  But one day we hope Guardian really finishes those online My Creative Classroom Photoshop Elements courses.  I think then we’ll all look much, much better—with a few Photoshopping tweaks!   A new picture shooter wouldn’t hurt, either. Hint, hint....

(Guardian here..hey Jazz, that last photo IS Photoshopped--a little.  Here's the before:)

 

 Jazz here...well, anybody out there with a Guardian who is a really good picture shooter??? What else could our Guardian have done?  I mean, what's that yellow thing in the background? 

OK, OK, Guardian, you can stop Photoshopping now..sheesh!

GOOPY EYES

Gus has allergies.  Guardian had him both food tested and “other” tested.  Three of his biggest food allergy problems were FISH, RICE AND BEETS.  Now, we can live without beets, but it’s pretty hard to find doggie eats that don’t have rice or fish.  Guardian has found a bunch of them, though, so he doesn’t feel left out.  Me, I’m OK—I can eat just about anything but dead bugs.  Just allergic to hard floors, coldness, loud noises, and being ignored.

Now, with the “other.”  Gus’s body doesn’t like certain trees, grasses, molds and something Guardian said were “mites.”  She can’t even pronounce the names of some of these things.

Gus also has sick eyes.  Guardian said it’s something that makes his eyes all goopy.  She sometimes calls the goopy stuff  “Goobers.”  If you look at our eyes side by side, Gus’s eyes look like something from Stephen King.  All dark.  My eyes are brown with a dark circle in the middle.  Gus doesn’t have that dark circle.  

They’re all dark. They’re weird and spooky.

See the Goober in his left eye?

She also said he sees things like he’s looking through a really dirty, muddy window.  [Guardian here: Gus has Pigmentary Keratitis.  The top layer of the cornea turns all brown. Any of you pugs out there have that, too??]  He seems to see fine, so far as I’m concerned.  He doesn’t bump into things usually unless he’s after a bit of something he thinks is food and an open door gets in his way.  Then, that’s his fault for not looking, I bet, not because his eyes can’t see.

Anyway, all this means Guardian has to keep his things clean—him AND his bedding.   She’s always washing things from his Man Dog Cave because she noticed his eyes were not as goopy each time she did that.  She squeegees this stuff in his eyes every day.  She’s sneaky.  She waits until he’s all sleepy and almost comatose on the sofa while the TV is on.  Before he knows what’s happened, his eyes have medicine gunk in them.

And now, she has to “shoot” him.  That sounds deadly!  She explained that she wasn't using a gun.  She has to shoot him with a needle (UGH!) to make his body not hate those things that that the test said his body didn’t like.  Whatever.

Gus also has problems with something called “yeast.”   When he came to live with us it was EVERYWHERE on his body—but the worst were his ears and feet.  Guardian gave him special medicine and changed his food and was very careful about what he ate and tried to dry off his feet in inside his ears all the time.  But Gus HATES to have his feet touched.  If you had swollen areas around your toenails and sore areas in-between your toes, you’d hate to have your feet touched, too.

The skin around his dewclaw is puffy and red and itches.

 

I’m lucky.  Guardian knows where I came from.  She visited where I was born and saw my Mommie, Sadie, and knew that I came from a place that was not a puppy mill.  But we think rescued Gus came from a place that only wanted to make money from puppies.  They didn’t care about who his parents were or what sort of place he grew up in.  So, he probably had a bad start in life.  But when he came to us, his luck changed. Guardian says we can’t change his jeans (she changes hers!) but we can change lots of other things to help him be healthier.  So, I’ll tell Gus to be happy he’s gonna be shot.  It’s not every day, so that’s good. He won’t be so itchy and maybe all that other stuff that makes him feel bad will get all better.   Honestly, though, he really doesn’t seem unhappy.

So, how many of you pugs out there are itchy or have an eye problem or this yeasty stuff?  What do your Guardians do to help you???

OSCAR AND OTIS

It's been forever since Guardian wrote about us.  She's got a lot of typing to do to catch up, so I've been staring at her a lot. She knows what I'm thinking!

Gus and I want to introduce some of our other friends.  You all know about Darby (he's doing a LOT better, in case you're curious), but meet Oscar and Otis, two of our pug friends.

They came from the Delaware Valley Pug Rescue, where Gus came from. When they were up for adoption, they had to go together.  There was a home near us that wanted to adopt both of them. Guardian took us over to meet the family, Judy and Michael, before O&O came to live there.  They had a big house and an even bigger (to us, anyway) back yard.  Guardian had to check out the fence to make sure there were no holes for curious pugs (really!?) to sneak out, but she couldn’t find any.  Gus and I were able to run around and explore—although I generally am too busy showing Gus and everyone else who’s the top pug (and Guardian is forever pulling me off him) to sniff around much.

Anyway, Judy and Michael were the perfect home for O&O, especially since they’d already had two previous pugs.  They had adopted those pugs when they were seniors, too, so we all knew they had big hearts.  Here are O&O with their guardians.  Can you see their backyard—and that’s only a tiny part of it! 

Otis and Judy      Oscar and Michael

 

We’ve been to their nice yard, but we’ve been meeting them at a local park mostly, ‘cuz their backyard swims a lot in rain.  And I sure don’t like getting wet and muddy.  (What pugs out there love getting wet and muddy?  Raise a paw, please!  I think you're rare.)

Fischer's Park

Now, O&O are surely BIG pugs.  Not fat, just BIG!  So take a look here and you’ll see for yourself.

Oscar, Jazz, Gus, Otis

Oscar & Otis; Jazz & Gus in back

 

Those two are a lot of meaty pugs compared to us!

Since no one has extra hands to take pictures while we’re all walking, we can’t show us all in action together.  But here’s Pam, holding on for dear life while 30 lb Oscar is off on his park adventure.

 

We’ll have more adventures with O&O and their guardians in the future when the sun shines warmer and the rain doesn't try to wash their yard away.  Stay tuned!

 

HAPPY NINE BONE BIRTHDAY, JAZZ!

So I'm told today is the day I came out of my mommy, Sadie. Well, not today, yeah, but 9 years ago. Of course, I don't remember that, but Guardian sure does.  She showed me this picture of me and two of my siblings at 6 weeks of age.

That's me on the right.  Crazy cute, aren't I?

And me again at 6 weeks. Just irresistible!

I came to live with Guardian two weeks later.  Here's the card she made me for today.

And here's me today...I've earned every one of those white/gray hairs, but I'm still pretty cute!

Guardian told me she had something special for me to play with and chew on today.  So enough blog writing.  It's MY birthday, and I'm going to enjoy what's left of February 11, 2012!

WE’VE BEEN PUBLISHED—IN PRINT!!

First of all, we'd like to welcome a new follower.  Hi Dolly!

Gus and I are so excited!  Guardian showed us the latest issue of PugTalk Magazine, and our blog got almost a whole page in it as a mini-article!

Here’s the cover of the January/February 2012 issue:

 

If any of you want to subscribe to Pug Talk, you’ll see the yellow box around the contact information in the Table of Contents below. Guardian told us it’s mostly about pugs that trot around the show ring and get judged for their looks.  But there are lots of other articles..like about pug health, pugs in other countries, pug agility, even dancing with pugs.  But if you aren’t one of those show trot pugs, and if any of your Guardian humans want to submit articles about YOU as just a lovable pug with some interesting stories, they often print them.   Then lots of pug people would read about you, and you’d be really, really famous, even without a blog!

And here’s the Table Of Contents.  Guardian drew the box around what page to go to.

 

And, finally, here’s what they printed:

I think the title of this cartoon strip is THE WORLD...

YIPPEE!! BATH TIME!

Now, you may not, but we LOVE bath time! Because Gus stinks faster than I do, we have to have baths pretty often. So loving baths--- a good thing.  I’m a pretty naked pug—only one layer of coat and a very bare chest and belly.  So there’s not much to get dirty.  Gus is almost 4 pounds bigger (that’s a lot in pug pounds, remember) and has more hair.  Plus he’s a boy, and even though he lost some of his parts a while ago, he starts to stink pretty quickly, even after a bath.  

Anyway, like I said, we really love bath time—mainly because we get treats while we’re in the tub and then we play with our ‘Cuz Squeaky Balls afterwards.  Tonight was one of those nights.  Thought we’d share some of what happens.  If you hate baths, maybe you need to ask your Guardian to change a few things so you, too, can love them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's our bath place--sort of afterwards.

 

Our shampoos.

I get the Tropiclean only.  Gus gets ‘em both, cause he has some skin problems.

Here’s where all the goodies are.  Treats in the center, our 'Cuz Balls in the other pockets. Guardian wears this.  This is when we wish we were Irish Wolfhounds so we could empty those pockets quickly! We're just WAY too short to do it as pugs.

I get in the tub first.

I’m the easiest and quickest.  I planned it that way, so I can get to play with my orange 'Cuz ball faster.

Gus is next.  He’ll talk about his bath time in the tub next. (I’m outside the bathroom playing with the ball, so I don’t know what goes on in there.)

 

Gus here. Yeah, I get washed, rinsed, soaped again, and then the fun begins!

This is me getting treats in one place.

 

Then I go to two other treat stops.

I just keep racing from one to the other, because treats magically appear. I’m gettin’ really fast at this, too!  That goes on for a while, and then I get the second shampoo rinsed off and the treat fun stops. But different fun is comin'!

Jazz again here.  We each get dried off after the washing and rinsing. That’s not all that much fun.  But, hey, we know ball-time is getting closer. Like I said earlier, I get my ball first and mainly love to chew on it.  Gus and Guardian go in another room and Gus chases balls that squeak. Guardian says he slobbers on them, too, so she has to use a second ball so she can dry the slobbered ball off while he’s slobbering up another one.  Otherwise the squeak becomes silent.   I got smart and now like the non-squeaky one, ‘cause Gus doesn’t try to steal that from me.  I hide in another room mostly, chewing and pretending the ball is hiding, then digging like crazy to find it, but I like it that way.  I’m unique.

This is what’s left for Guardian. It’s our gift to her:

 

And this is what she’d like to become after Bath and Ball Time are OVER.

So, if any of you pugs out there hate baths--maybe you could have your Guardians read this post.  Sometimes humans need to be educated properly.  But let us know if it works!