WHAC-A-MOLE WELLNESS

Gus has Stephen King eyes (no pupils, just weird, scary dark eyes ) gets 3 different eye meds, eats special food without rice or fish or beets, and gets shots because he's allergic to about every grass, fungus, tree and plant there is. Then he got all this white stuff that started to show up all over his back and haunches.  Like someone had taken a sea salt shaker and sprinkled it on him.
But what got Guardian really upset was that Gus started to lose patches of his fur. Then he got some bald spots and his once shiny black coat got all dull and ugly. 

Now, therapy dogs just can't have that problem, so off to the vet he went.
Gus told me that it took Guardian and the other lady who works with the vet to put wrestling holds on him to keep him from jumping off that slippery table. He escaped a couple of times, then Guardian pulled out the big guns....uh....smelly treats.  Gus has to be really, really sick not to eat, and when that stuff waved in front of his nose, well, next thing he knew, he was out of the wrestling hold and done with the vet.  Guardian said the vet scraped Gus's skin and sent it off somewhere.

Jazz: ALL his skin?
GUARDIAN: No, silly, just a tiny bit of it.

When it came back, it was not good. Some kind of bug that usually attacks human throats was now attacking Gus, but far from his throat. What's a bug that attacks human throats doing on a pug's skin???!! Has some infected human been sucking on your skin,Gus? 

And it meant that it needed special medication AGAIN. 

And new shampoo.

Guardian: Figuring out how to keep Gus healthy is like playing Whac-A-Mole.

Jazz: Whack a WHAT?
Guardian: Oh some kind of game...hard to explain. But we just get one Gus ailment fixed and another pops up. We don't know his background, 'cuz he was adopted.  But he sure is a walking ad AGAINST puppy mill breeding, since that's where he probably came from.



Then she changed some of his food again....he gets real rabbit patties instead of canned food. (She sometimes sneaks a piece of the bunny to me! YUM!)  Then she gave us both some white glop to eat for our fur.

But, you know what? Gus is better! No more bare patches. His fur is shiny again thanks to all that special care. Much less sea salt sprinkles. He told me he feels a LOT better now, too.

So moles BE WARNED!!!! That whacker is ready to knock you down if you ever show your ugly mug again!  
 

A HUNGRY PLEA FROM THE SNORTY PUGS

Gus and I have both been listening to kids read lately.  I usually go to the far-away library.

That's a name tag on my back. Ewww...I'm so grey!

Gus: I go to the short trip library.

Love those head scratches!

 Jazz:  I get to see more kids in a bigger room.
Gus: I get to spend less time in the crate.
Jazz:  I got to go to the library's luncheon for volunteers.
Gus:  You did!? 
Jazz: Yeah, it was awesomely BIG.  It was in the same room that the kids read to me...only it smelled a lot better. But only grown up people, no kids.  And a few other (really huge) therapy dogs.
Gus:  So what did you get to eat?
Jazz: Wouldn't you like to know?
Gus: Uhhhhm...I just asked you to tell me.
 Jazz:  Wellllllllll....actually Guardian wouldn't let me eat her lunch food.
Gus: She's holding out on us.  At the pug meetup, a bunch of pugs told me they get people food a LOT.

She gives you her human food?!?

Jazz:  Hmmmmm...you always look hungrier than I do.  And you are always velcroed to Guardian.  Ya think you can look like you are definitely starving next time she's eating a meal?
Gus: I always look like I'm starving, because I am. 
Jazz: Yeah, and we all know how well that works...Hey, let's put it to the pug world to tell us how to get Guardian to give us her human food!
Gus: OK!

So, readers...what do you do to get your human to give you his/her food????

Please help us...you see here what disgusting things we have to eat. Does this look like something you would eat, humans? I didn't think so. Have pity on us pugs!

NICE BACON LADY

Finally! Something interesting going on here!

We met this nice lady with a big black, sort of noisy round tunnel thing coming out of her face (a lot of the time--she had regular eyes, nose, mouth stuff, too). 

She had hands that were filled with treats--like ALL the time.  At first I didn't like the weird noise that kept happening, but they seemed to bring on the treats, so I figured that the tunnel thing was pretty much OK.

We got to go to the park where we always walk with Oscar and Otis.  Only they didn't show up.  We had the nice lady & Guardian all to ourselves.  I'm the most important pug, so I got to go first.  She made these strange noises sometimes, too, which I had to twist and tilt my head to make any sense of them.  Treats kept coming, so I kept paying attention to her.  She seemed happy with how I was acting, so I kept it up until I got really tired.

She even took me off the leash so I could run free!  That never happened before in the park.  It sort of woke me up, too.

Gus here:  I was wondering when I'd be getting the nice lady's treats.  We didn't stay in the flowers where she had put Jazz.  That was fine with me.  I got to do studly things on a bench.  Next thing I hear is the word "supermodel," and lots more treats.  This was getting to be fun. I also got treats for just peering out of my car crate.  I got to run free, too.

Jazz: By the time we got home, I was really ready for a nap.  Gus looked droopy, too.  The nice lady and Guardian kept yacking and yacking, which is sort of equal to a sleeping pill to me, so long as I don't miss out on any more treats.

After the nice lady with the noisy black tunnel coming out of her face left, Guardian opened the gifts that the nice lady had brought for US!

There was a pink elephant toy that not only squeaked, but made some of of plastic bag noise.  I like to attack plastic bags (Guardian always pulls it away from me for some lame reason), but not with this toy!  We both had a go at it, trying our best to destroy it.

But the most amazing gifts were something to do with what Guardian called "bacon."    There was this little bottle that smelled delicious when she opened it.  Gus and I sort of licked it, then wanted to grab it.  OMIGOSH...we'd never tasted anything like it!  We wanted to put it in our mouths and run away with it.  Guardian just jerked it up and gave us her evil eye look.  When we did things she liked, like sitting or obeying some other command, out came the little bottle.  

 Then the last, but not least gift was something Guardian said she had to cook.  She plopped it into the ultra fast cooker thing over the stove and it filled the house with this unbelievable mixtures of smells.  It also made sort of popping noises.  Guardian said it had to cool down first--then she gave it to us. It was crunchy and tasted like--BACON!  

The nice lady then became The Nice BACON Lady. 

Thank you, Nice BACON Lady, for coming to visit, for telling us we were Supermodels (well, in my case, since I have to be different--a Saucy Model), and for bringing us our first BACON!!  

Then we found out she was The Daily Puglet's human.

Puglet--we are ONE with the BACON!

M.I.N.A (Missing In Non-Action)

We've been hibernating through this really cold and windy "spring."  We don't get long walks and we don't go to too many interesting places.  So...that's why we've been so silent here.  In case you've forgotten what we look like....

And here's another one...you can see how excited we are (NOT!)

We hope to have some really interesting things to tell you after next week.  Guardian said we're supposed to have a special visitor on Thursday.  But unless it involves food, playing with our 'Cuz balls, food, gentle people who stroke us and food, we don't really care.

I know this is really boring to read...and we're only showing you how it's been for us the past umpteen days.

If you have any interesting stories to tell, we'd love to hear them.  We're fresh out of our own.  Maybe we can borrow yours?

BELATED 10-BONE CELEBARKATION?

Well, I may finally get my 10-bone birthday celebarkation after all. I'm not holding my stinky breath on that happening.  And it may not be until April, when Guardian has her ---uh--BD.  (Shhhhhhhhh...she doesn't want anyone to know that she's piling on another year!)

She thinks the 1000 pug lady photographer will be coming to celebark on her BD, and my BD may be part of that, but nothing is certain.  We sure know that, especially when we wonder when we will get our next walk after the morning ritual.  After breakfast, we never are sure when the next outing will be.

Guardian is once again taking those classes that happen on the computer--the stampy ones that put her in the basement where she forgets about us.

She did this really weird picture that doesn't look at all like those pretty ones above.

I mean, WHAT  IS THIS?  I thought it was just my eyes getting all blurry, but Guardian called it something like a baby's nightmare with stars or some silly thing like that. 

Then she showed us a couple of pictures she did with pugs in them and a Havanese like our friend and neighbor, Darby.  The first one actually has Molly in it.  She's the one right behind the black pug. Molly was my pug aunt and used to live with us until she went over the Rainbow Bridge.

I don't know who that boy is, but I can tell you those pugs aren't happy about him holding some dog that isn't them!

And one that has a dog, but not a pug.

Well, it's a good thing she didn't put a pug in THAT one!  I mean, how many pugs come when they're called anyway?  The cat thing--now that's true!

NOW WE KNOW....CHEATING ON US

We haven’t been on here because Guardian has been jet-lagged. She also had to catch up on everything.

We found out more why Guardian left us for a bunch of days. Turns out she took classes to become a better dog communicator, and it seems to be working.  Gus and I agree that even though she’s acting weird, we’ll go along with it for now.  She’s not talking as much, making strong hand gestures and occasionally body tapping us to get us to do things--sort of good in a way, strangely enough.  We get tired of too much human talking.

Still, she hasn’t completely forgotten how to be like she was before she left us.  We get lots of loving--just not so all the darn time.  It’s a relief, really.  We never quite felt comfortable with all that attention, even if we loved it.  Don’t know how to explain it, but we feel calmer now.

There were photos to show it was some sort of hiking event with lots of people and other dogs.  That guy who whispers to dogs was involved along with two others called Brian and Cheri. 

 We know that Guardian is very happy she went, and because she hasn’t totally ignored us since she returned, we think it was all ok.  Except she missed my 10 bone birthday.  Well...I’ll forgive her for that.  After a point, it’s OK to ignore those years piling up.

HOWEVER, we saw some photos recently that proves she was cheating on us.
Who is that strange dog kissing her?

Guardian holding up a tag that had OUR photos on it! So our avatars were there, at least.

After she got back and before the weather got all wintry and cold and windy again, we went on longer walks, too, like the dogs in the photo. We didn’t get to sniff as often.  After a while, we didn’t care.  We sort of got into the groove...sort of meditative....and primal--wolf-like!  Darby was walking with us, too. Our very own pack!  But today was just too cold, and even Gus didn’t want to stay out very long.  Guardian decided to give us a bath, which ends in a chew-and-chase-the-ball event.  We live for those moments...and for food... and touching...and food and petting...(just not ALL the time--well, except for the food).

Guardian told us that the 1000 pug photo lady got sick and she couldn’t share Valentine’s Day with us like we thought.  So when she gets better she’ll come to see us.  We know that she doesn’t yet have the 1000 pugs she needs for her book, so we feel it's important to help her reach that big number.  So Puglet (if you ever read this), tell your human we still want to meet her and help her out.  We hope she gets all better soon.

 

If you want to see some really cool pug photos, go to http://1000pugs.com/.  

One day we’ll have our pug mugs on there, too, we hope!

SOMETHING'S UP

I've suspected something's not quite right lately.  The last couple of days, Guardian has been pulling stuff out of closets, putting them in boxes.  Then she pulled out this thing with handles and zippers and wheels, opened it and started putting a lot of the stuff into it from those boxes.

Today she took this heavy thing and bumped it down the stairs and put it near the front door.  Gus and I investigated it.

Yep, it's just as I suspected...she's leaving us again. She rolled this thing out to her car tonight, so that's the biggest clue.

I figure if she's not here, I can't dictate to her, so the blog will be lonely again until she returns.  We will, too.

So you will have to wait until she comes back before you can read all about it.

Any ideas where she might be going? Has she told any of you where she's disappearing to?