The one and only Bubba

Bubba and his trademark light green eyes
As I gaze into Bubba’s eyes I realize how lucky we are to have this wonderful cat. When it comes to cat temperaments you couldn’t ask for much better. He is mellow and easy going and rarely complains or makes a fuss (yes, cats do fuss!) Bubba came to us about 6 years ago when we adopted him from the San Jose Humane Society. We had just recently put down our long shaggy haired black cat Fay Fay (a Chinese name that translates roughly into “Fat Cat” – he wasn’t really fat, just fluffy!) My boys were extremely sad so I took them to the Humane Society on a Saturday “just to look.” Well, a wonderful volunteer listened to our preference (big black cats) and steered us over to cat named Mombassa. It was love at first sight. We wanted him right then and there. But I told my boys we should wait and ask their dad first. Well, my husband came back with me the next Monday. It didn’t take him long to see that “Mombassa” was the cat for us. We also picked out another black cat (Larry) to be his companion. Larry was still fairly young and seemed to have a friendly personality, but we later discovered he was somewhat skittish. However, he and Mombassa did get along, so that was great.

Anyhow, the name Mombassa just didn’t seem to be a fit. We called him “Momba” for a while but then it somehow changed to “Bubba” or sometimes simply “Bub.” He’s a long-bodied cat with an easy-going attitude that’s rare in the cat world, and the name Bubba captured his personality perfectly.

This personality, in turn, turned out to be a blessing when we got our pug Spanky, who was a mere 9-weeks old at the time when we brought him home. Spanky loved Bubba like a big brother and would lick his ears until they were soaking wet. I have to admit I was deathly afraid that the cats would scratch Spanky’s big bulgy eyes but that was never the case. Larry stayed his distance from Spanky but he is much more tolerant of him now. Bubba, on the other hand, seemed perfectly comfortable around him and has only raised his paw once or twice as a warning when Spanky got a bit overzealous and playful with him.


Spanky as a puppy, sharing his bed with Bubba
Sadly, though, things are not going so well for Bubba. We noticed that one of his eyes didn’t look right this last week. He had been squinting it a bit recently, too. So I took him in and had it checked out. The vet says he doesn’t have glaucoma, which is good news, but the bad news is she couldn’t see his retina. She feels he might have a tumor, but I wasn’t ready to sink hundreds of dollars into finding out whether this was the case or not, as the only cure for that would be to remove his eye. I did agree to test him for toxoplasmosis, which can affect the eyes and is treatable. This can be picked up by cats that kill rodents, which Bubba had done a few times. The last mouse or vole he killed was a few months ago, so it could be a possibility. They sent his blood sample up to Colorado State in Fort Collins to be tested and we should know next week. In the meantime we’re all spending more time with Bubba, feeding him his favorite canned food, and treasuring the moments we spend with him. I hope we can treat his condition because I know Spanky cares for him, in his doggy way.


Spanky & Bub hanging out together. Notice that Bubba's left eye looks a little strange.

Two pugs named Spanky?

Some of you follow me & Spanky on Flickr under the profile name Chica-tica. But in case you've noticed other pics showing up on Flickr with a pug named Spanky, well, chances are they're the same Spanky! My oldest son is quite the photography buff, with a "real" camera (Canon DSLR.) He recently borrowed an 80 mm lens. In the photography world this is known as a "bokehlicious" lens. What's that, you ask? The Urban Dictionary explains it quite well:

In photography, Bokeh is a Japanese word - the transliteration of a Japanese word for "blur" - describing the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image projected by a camera lens. For example, in some images the background may be deliberately caused to be out-of-focus to reduce distractions and to emphasize the primary subject.

He had a great time with it and posted some awesome shots of Spanky. Check them out . . .

(You may click the photos to see them bigger and better on Flickr.)

Tebowmania

Today I'm going to divert from my usual topic of pugs and talk about Tebowmania. If you don't follow NFL football or don't live in the Denver area, let me briefly fill you in.  Tim Tebow (quarterback) won the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore at Florida. He was drafted in 2010 by the Broncos in the first round (25th pick) but didn't start a game until the very end of the season last year. This season he didn't start until the sixth game. Things were a bit shaky at first, with one win in Miami and a loss against Detroit. But things turned around the next week in Oakland and Tim led the Broncos on a 6-game winning streak. Tebowmania hit Denver. Didn't matter if you didn't follow football - everyone knew about Tim, the golden boy with good morals and equally good looks to match. However, Tebowmania started to wain when the Broncos posted 3 consecutive losses. No fear, though. It has returned, at least for a while, as the Broncos managed to get into the playoffs and score a win against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

 

My contribution to Tebowmania has been these two pictures of my neighbor's twin grandbabies. The first one I did on my own -- just a spur of the moment thing -- adding a few speech bubbles. The second was actually requested by the mom of the babies.

Shower Day for Spanky

 Another one of the reasons we were attracted to the pug breed was their relatively low maintenance grooming routine. We once had a very shaggy long-haired cat – probably with a bit of Maine Coon in it – that was an absolute pain to keep groomed. Huge chunks of matted fur, puked-up hair balls, not to mention hair everywhere. Well, we dodged the matted fur issue and the middle-of-the-night wake up calls of a vomiting cat, but the shedding issue we did not. I was aware that pugs shed, but until you own one, you may not realize the extent of that shedding.

Of course, we could brush him on a daily basis, but we weren’t very good at that.  So early on we decided we’d try to get Spanky used to a monthly bath. Not only did it help rid him of a lot of loose hair, but it also made him smell nicer. Not that pugs smell bad – I don’t think they do. But my husband thinks he starts to smell too “doggy” after a few weeks. He prefers the scent of our neighbor’s Malti-poo that has longer curly locks, which although pretty, are not water resistant like Spanky’s.  But it’s this water resistance that results in that sometimes musky smell.

Spanky's first bath

When Spanky was a little guy bathing was a fairly simple task that was easily managed in our large master bathroom tub. But as he got bigger, he jumped around more and resisted a bit. So one day my husband took Spanky in the shower with him. This proved to be the perfect solution. We tried some dog shampoos, but we found that one of my “moisturizing” shampoos (because it’s soooo dry here in Colorado) worked better. He just sort of walks around in the stall while my husband showers, and then when he’s done, he shampoos Spanky. A whole load of hair comes off and even more when we towel dry him. I then follow up with a combing, using a rubber-type brush to get even more hair and finish by putting ear drops in his ears. Having floppy ears, Spanky is susceptible to ear infections, so doing this as a preventative measure is an important step.

Must haves! Comb, Ear Drops

The shower is also a good place to give his wrinkles a really good cleaning. Some pugs have more wrinkles than others. Spanky happens to be a pug with very deep wrinkles below his eyes which can get  filled with crud. I do try to wipe his wrinkles out on a daily basis since he gets lots of eye boogers. I usually manage to wipe off these guys, but sometimes Spanky “washes” his face with his paws (I swear he learned this from our cats) and his deep wrinkles can have some pretty nasty junk in them.

Waiting for his turn

Of course, your pug won’t smell good right away. It takes about an hour for the fur to dry completely and until then, the musky wet-dog smell will prevail.

yum!

Now, does Spanky like to shower? Hard to say. His tail flops down when we shampoo him, which is always the sign of an unhappy pug. And we know he hates his ear drops. But after that, he seems to go crazy, zipping around the house and acting very playful. Of course, our long-haired cat did that too every time he pooped, so maybe it’s an animal’s way of releasing cathartic energy.

To crate or not to crate?

Lil Spanky

Bringing Spanky home from the breeder was a bit like bringing a baby home from the hospital. Being first time dog owners, there were so many unknowns, including the best way to transport him. We had a cat carrier that we put a blanket in, but he must have got car sick or was just plain scared to death.  The poor little guy vomited a few times in the 3-hour ride back from Burlington, so by the time we got home, both the carrier and Spanky needed a bit of cleaning.

Fortunately, he seemed excited to explore his new surroundings and quickly did his business in the backyard. That made us happy, but we soon learned that puppies don’t always remember to hold it and so over the coming months we had to deal with many accidents in the house. In that regard, I think cats are easier. I’ve seen little teeny tiny kittens at Humane Society learn to use the litter box faster than Spanky learned to hold his little bladder. But I’ll save the joys of house breaking for another blog posting.

The big question in our mind that first day was how would Spanky do sleeping in a crate. We had decided ahead of time that we wanted to crate train Spanky as we had two cats in the house and we had visions of the three of them chasing each other in the middle of the night. At the time we only had a queen bed and there certainly was no room in it for even a small dog. And did I mention that pugs snore and can be gassy?  Plus we had steep stairs that Spanky couldn’t even initially climb up. So with all these considerations in mind, having him sleep in a crate seemed to be the logical choice.

Getting him in the crate was certainly easy enough (we started off with the cat carrier, as Spanky was only maybe four pounds at the time) and we didn’t end up with battle wounds like we did when we had to stick the cats in there. However, Spanky started whimpering and “crying” – what the heck had I signed myself up for? I had already dealt with the trials and tribulations of raising two kids, so why did I want to put myself through this again? I gave in and brought the crate up to our room the first night. He did eventually fall asleep, and even better, didn’t even need to be taken out in the middle of the night to go potty. But we didn’t like him sleeping in the room and wanted to break him of this habit quickly.

So on night #2, I left the crate in the kitchen. Once again, he started to whimper. But it was a bit better than the night before, and so like a mom trying to teach her toddler to get to sleep without a binky or in his own crib, I left Spanky in the kitchen until his whimpers died out and he went to sleep.

By night #3, Spanky happily trotted to his crate and seemed content to cozy up with his blanket. I quickly learned, too, that having some sort of chew toy made it easier in the beginning. Even better, he learned to love his crate as a safe retreat. When he was a puppy he was even fine staying in it while I went out on errands. It kept him out of trouble and from chewing up furniture and other things.

Spanky & Bubba

Eventually, I did have to get him a larger crate – it measures 21 inches high, 18 inches deep, and 24 inches wide. It’s the perfect size for him (he’s now about 23-24 lbs.) and even slides neatly under the counter desk in our kitchen, which we never used anyhow. We put a small dog bed in it so he can snuggle up and feel comfy. And here’s the funny part – Spanky is perfectly content to share it with one of our cats, Bubba, who takes the day shift in the crate, while Spanky sleeps on the couch.

Bubba in "his" crate

So in the end, crate training worked out well for us. While some folks may think it might be cruel to put a cute little dog in a cage, Spanky seems happy to go to bed there and has never caused a ruckus during the night. After all, many animals in the wild sleep in dens, so I see it as no more different than that. Besides, the few times Spanky has snuggled into bed with my husband in the morning, he has turned out to be quite the bed hog!

Welcome to my blog!

My one goal for 2012 was to start a blog. But about what?  Well, I live in Colorado, known for its great scenery. Sure, we do a lot of hiking and traveling, and I probably will include posts on our travel adventures at some point. However, there are a ton of great Colorado travel blogs already. So what else could I talk about? I know a couple fantastic food bloggers and  I've got a 20-something niece who blogs about her exciting single life. Just when I was about to give up, it became clear to me very quickly. My pug. Yup, anyone who knows me knows I'm a little bit nuts about my pug.


So why not? I decided to make a stab at it. My goal is to not only include useful information about pugs for potential and current owners, but to just have fun and give you a peak into our day to day life with this silly dog we call Spanky.

Today I'll keep my post short and sweet, with just a quick introduction to Spanky. He was born in the little itty-bitty town  of Burlington on the Colorado-Kansas border on August 4, 2008. He came into our lives about nine weeks later. My husband knew I had a thing for pugs. I had fallen in love with a pug down the street named Bella. Sweet as apple pie, good natured, and always made the cutest little grunts when I scratched her throat. I had to have one of these dogs!

Now I didn't really know a thing about pugs, let alone dogs. I'm a cat person. Got my first cat in my 20's and we've always had cats in our household since then. But things weren't the best in 2008 -- that's when the stock market was tanking and the housing market was crashing down. We needed something new in our life. And that new thing was Spanky.

Spanky as a little puppy - about 10 weeks old

So, in answer to the next question . . . how did you come up with the name Spanky? I have absolutely no idea. I was playing "Pet Pupz" on Facebook and named my virtual pug Spanky. The breeder in Burlington had two male pugs that we were looking at, Nick and Ned. We decided that we liked Nick, or rather, he decided he liked us. He actually came up and sat in my son Nicholas' lap. But we couldn't have two Nicks in our house. So I immediately christened him Spanky. And somehow the name fits him perfectly - cute, wrinkly, mischievous, and a little trouble maker. Welcome to Spanky's world!