Really exciting news here at Denny Towers – we are moving!!  Yup, the house has been sold (closing next week) and we have bought a new place in beautiful North Carolina! 

We couldn’t be happier except for all of the exhausting packing/selling/purging nonsense that goes along with moving (and having lived in one place for 7 years!)

The Pugs are decidedly confused.  Munchkin is an old pro at this moving malarkey, so she’s not bothered; but the pugs definitely have no idea what is happening.  We have sold most of the furniture so they are a bit concerned that every time someone comes to the house we seem to have things go missing.  Though they seem rather happy about the mattress on the floor (makes going to bed and getting up much easier for them – though MUCH more difficult for us gangly humans.)

They have no idea how much planning and plotting has gone into this move.  And they have absolutely no idea how much their quality of life is going to improve very shortly!  We are thrilled to be moving to an area with 4 – count them, FOUR – seasons!  That means less oppressive heat & humidity in the summer; a shorter summer and a lot more outside-time for the doggers.  We have bought a home with a decent plot of land, so there will also be a ginormous yard for the kidders to run around in.  And a lovely screened porch for mornings and evenings to spend laying about without being munched on by bugs (humans too!)

All in all we are so pleased that we are finally making the move we have been working towards for so long now.  We will miss our friends here in Texas (both pug and people) but we know this is the right move for us.

Stay tuned for details and updates on our move and new home!

Denny Towers has been a flurry of activity lately…there is so much to do and time keeps persistently ticking by…

Following Stewie’s birthday, we had a lovely Thanksgiving with all of the kidders enjoying a bit of turkey (but no other dishes were deemed appropriate for the furkids, so no stuffing or green bean casserole!)

And then as the end of the month rolled around, it was time to celebrate our sweet kitty Munchkin’s birthday.  She doesn’t get mentioned much on these pages, mainly because she’s not a pug, but she is the senior member of the household.  I had honestly only a rough estimate of her age but when I pulled out her vet records to see the date of her first vet visit, I realized that this year marks her 16^th birthday! 

For those of you not familiar with Munchkin’s story, this sweet little girl ended up under my front porch one freezing January morning in North Carolina.  Our house was covered in ice and the freezing wind was whipping around.  When my brother headed out to his car to go to work, he heard a pitiful mewing coming from under the porch.  He stopped and found Munchkin cowering under the deck, trying to hide from the elements.  He scooped her up and brought her inside and gave her to me.  As he went off to work I wondered what to do with her.  She was so tiny – could not have been more than 6 weeks old if that.  A look around outside found no other kittens or a mother.  Had she been left behind? Did her mother intentionally leave her?  We’ll never know.  But given Munchkin’s diminutive build, we have always believed her to be the “runt” of the litter.  Probably left behind on purpose given her poor chance of survival if left out in the elements.   As I already had a cat, Tigger, I was hesitant to keep her.  I called her Munchkin because of her diminutive size, thinking whoever she ended up with would probably change it.  But, as everyone around me predicted, I never gave her up and she became a permanent member of our household.

I often wonder what happened to her littermates.  Are any of them still alive? Did any of them ever leave NC?  It’s doubtful any of them have had the globe-trotting adventures that Munchkin has.  She’s lived all up and down the SE US. When I was doing my nurse contracting work, I used to pack her and Tigger up in carriers and put them in the backseat while I drove to our new home in whatever state we were going to live in for the next few months.  She would settle in and sleep the whole drive, never complaining.  When I moved to England, she preceded me and flew into London, her first time on a plane.  She lived happily in the UK, scaring me by climbing out of 2^nd story windows and into trees.  (She also went missing in the UK but thanks to a microchip ended up back with us – but that’s another story.)  When we moved back to the US she was ferried on the Queen Mary II in kennels that have housed the pets of royalty and celebrities.  Upon arrival in the US, we drove cross-country to TX, stopping to stay in strange and not-so-nice motels along the way.  And once here she saw countless dogs come stay with us; some as fosters and some as new family members. 

And through it all she has remained a sweet, even-tempered girl who adapts and learns to live with whatever changes she has to deal with.  She has been my rock, with me through thick and thin.  I owe her so much. 

She had a trip to the vet for a senior check-up this past week.  Everyone, including the vet, kept commenting that she looked remarkably well for 16.  To me, she still looks like a kitten.  And thankfully she has remained lively and active.  Occasionally I’ll see her bat around a toy when she thinks nobody is looking, which makes me smile.  On this trip we found that she had lost a bit of weight.  Blood tests showed she has developed an overactive thyroid, a common condition in senior cats.  We will be starting her on a new medication to correct the imbalance.  All the other tests showed she remains in overall good health.  I’m relieved.  She is my rock.  She has been my constant companion for 16 years and I cannot imagine life without her.  Here’s hoping I don’t have to for many years yet.

I love you Munch!

Incredibly, against all odds, that boy has managed to survive to see his 3rd birthday!  Amazing!

Firstly, the little guy has a really bad habit of eating absolutely anything.  And I mean anything!  The amount of times I have had to pry open his jaws and do a finger sweep… (ah, the thing we “parents” do for our babies)  He has a particular fondness for cardboard and wood, but he’s not all that fussy.  Although he has developed a real penchant for footwear, as demonstrated by his obsession with Granddad’s slippers.

Secondly, Stewie has turned out to be slightly more sensitive than we realized.  He’s actually had a couple of instances where he has had severe allergic reactions to certain things, necessitating trips to the emergency vet and multiple doses of Benadryl.

But through it all, this little guy has demonstrated the most incredible personality.  He’s a lover, a sweetie who just wants to cuddle.  He’s extremely eager to please (and strangely the least food-motivated pug I’ve ever met!) He’s smart – he can figure out things for himself, and he’s got a fantastic memory.  He can be a bit of a loner, hanging out by himself in a corner of the room but when he wants to cuddle he is in there with the best of them.

He’s a cutie who has definitely grown on me – I was the one who was dead set against a puppy when he came into our house.  But he won me over and by the time he had to go for his neuter surgery to get him ready for placement through PugHearts I knew I couldn’t let him go.

So here’s to my sweet little StewPot.  Thank you for sharing the last 2 1/2 years with us and here’s to many, many more!

It’s been a typically hot summer here in Houston. Probably not as bad as we’ve seen – last year we had a stretch of weeks with temperatures soaring into the 100’s. This year has been a bit more typical with average temps in the high 90s with the normal high humidity. Not nice, but normal for this area. And of course with the high temperatures we’ve seen the disturbing reports of idiots leaving kids and pets in their cars. Far too many deaths due to stupidity.

Closer to home, our local rescue was notified that one of our dogs adopted out here in Houston had suffered a heat stroke by being left outside all day. She was a young, healthy pug.

It scares us. It doesn’t take long for anyone to get overheated in these conditions. Add to that a fur coat and a tiny little smushy face, and you’ve got a recipe for a tragedy. Throw in the fact that Denny isn’t as mobile as he used to be and cannot climb through the doggie door anymore and also the fact that Maggie is too stubborn/ignorant to realize she’s getting overheated and you can see why we worry about our guys. We usually leave the back door open so that the furkids can get in & out through the doggie door as they need to. But this year we’ve repeatedly closed the door to prevent them from going out unsupervised. If we’re home but upstairs we’ll close the door. It’s just that little extra precaution that makes me feel a bit better.

I love these guys, but they are dogs after all – not humans. They are not able to think as logically as a human and therefore don’t always make the best judgment calls. Anyone who says “instinct” will guide them to keep safe has obviously never heard about the sheep that plunge over a cliff just because they were following the sheep in front of them. These guys need us to use our good sense to make sure they are safe. It’s no different than a baby needing an adult to decide what’s best for them.

Plus of course there’s the fact that if given half a chance Charlie will go unsupervised into the pool and then drip pool water all over our new wood floors….