Meiby the Pug

Pugtastrophe

2010-03-09T19:59:00.002-06:00

Poor silly pug... a week or so ago we took Meiby to the vet with her second bladder infection in less than a year. After being on antibiotics for a week she was rubbing her head on everything and scratching at her face until she injured her own eye. Turns out she's allergic to Clavamox (the antibiotic). So we took her to the vet again today where they switched her to a different antibiotic and then gave us eye drops, pain meds, and benedryl to administer... and an e collar for her to wear for a week. It's pathetic but hard not to laugh at her. It's just so cute. She's tolerating it pretty well I think but keeps ramming her cone into everything. I have to hold her bone for her so she can chew on it because she can't use her paws on it very well.

Sunday

2010-03-07T14:49:00.000-06:00

happy valentime :)

2010-02-14T12:45:00.001-06:00

warm and cozy

2010-02-09T10:19:00.003-06:00

This is Meiby's favorite chair... especially when the afternoon sun is shining in.

cabin fever

2010-01-20T19:51:00.001-06:00

Meiby has been so bored lately since it's too cold to spend much time outside. The other day I was sitting on the couch with my laptop and Meiby proceeded to get all 7 of her stuffed animals out, one by one, and spread them across the couch. She'd get one out, play with it for 10 minutes or so, then go get another one. I'd play fetch with her sporadically but she just didn't seem satisfied with any of her toys.

So I took her for a little night time romp in the snow :)

January in Indiana

2010-01-10T12:57:00.003-06:00

Mom, can we go outside? Please!!!

OMG what is all this cold white stuff?

-10 minutes later-
OK, I'm cold... lets go in now!

Happy Birthday Meiby!

2010-01-03T12:21:00.001-06:00

It's Meiby's 2nd birthday... and it snowed a bunch:

Ok, I'm done now. It's cold!

Meiby Xmas!

2009-12-17T17:24:00.000-06:00

yummy winter food!

2009-11-30T14:48:00.004-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted a recipe here but these were so good I felt I needed to share. The first is a Moroccan Lentil Stew adapted from this recipe. The second is the veggie dish I made for Thanksgiving. Both are vegan (if you use olive oil instead of butter for the latter) crockpot recipes. Great for winter!

Moroccan Lentil Stew

-3/4 cup dried lentils
-1/2 can garbanzo beans
-2 sweet potatoes chopped into 2 inch chunks
-an equal amount of another veggie (I used broccoli but zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, peas, etc. would be good too)
-3 1/4 cups water
-1 veggie bouillon cube
-1 t cumin
-1 t ginger
-1 t salt
-1 t pepper
-1/2 t cinnamon
-1/2 t coriander
-1/2 t allspice
-1/4 t cloves

Chop up all of your vegetables and add them to the crockpot. Drain and rinse off the beans, add to the pot. Add the dried lentils and the dried spices. Stir in the water and bouillon (or use broth instead). Lentils will be softer if you add any tomatoes and salt at the very end.

Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours. Soup tastes best the longer you cook it, and it is even better the next day.

Roasted Root Veggies

-1 rutabaga
-1 bag of whole carrots
-2 parsnips
-1 bunch of chopped fresh parsley
-4 Tbsp butter (I didn't measure so I'm guessing at this amount)
-1/4 chopped white onion
-2 or 3 finely chopped garlic cloves
-salt and pepper to taste

Peel all of your vegetables, and cut into 2-inch chunks. Saute onion and garlic in the butter on the stove until they are soft. Pour over veggies and parsley in a big bowl and mix well. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour it all into crockpot and cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4-5 hours.

pugsgiving

2009-11-29T15:55:00.003-06:00

We took Meiby to Nick's grandparent's house on Thanksgiving again this year. Last year we took her crate with us and locked her up while we ate. This year she's not so tolerant of the crate. She doesn't sleep in there anymore and she's trustworthy to leave loose when we are gone now so she's never locked up. Instead, I concocted a special treat for her to keep her busy while we ate:

I filled a hollow bone with carrots. Worked like a charm!

wordless again

2009-11-25T09:21:00.001-06:00

Wordless Wednesday

2009-11-18T08:03:00.000-06:00

nares surgery

2009-11-03T11:12:00.002-06:00

Yesterday Meiby had her nostrils widened to help her breathe... called laser nares surgery. Basically they use a laser to shave off the inside of her nostrils. She did very well with the surgery. It went quickly and smoothly and actually cost us way less than they had estimated. The inside of her nose (which is now quite exposed) is still very pink and swollen. It should heal within a few days and the pinkness should return to it's normal black color. She looks pretty funny (not that she didn't always) and is making funny noises as she gets used to her new nose and deals with the sensitivity.

This is before:

and after:

you can see a bit of pink when you look at her straight on but her deep fold puts her nose in shadows most of the time anyway so you wouldn't notice with a quick glance. I'll post a photo of the healed view in a few days (or however long it takes to heal.)

happy halloween!

2009-10-31T09:32:00.001-05:00

so small

2009-10-26T12:01:00.001-05:00

getting colder

2009-09-29T10:59:00.005-05:00

This weekend we bathed our pug. If you've ever bathed a pug you'll know that they don't dry quickly. We usually towel her off as much as possible and then let her run around or roll around on a towel until she's dry. This time, after the running and rolling, she was still a bit damp and she curled up on my lap and shivered, poor puppy! So I wrapped her up in a towel and cuddled for a while, and then I thought, it's fall... maybe it's time to get out her sweater! So she's been rocking the sweater ever since and we are constantly amused by the cuteness. She kind of waddles around when she wears it and when she curls up on the couch she looks like a caterpillar peeking out of a cocoon.

Meiby Pug on Mugs

2009-09-14T16:06:00.003-05:00

http://www.cafepress.com/MeibythePug

I plan on making variations and additions but this is what I had ready to go today. Enjoy :)

who needs a Meiby fix?

2009-09-08T15:21:00.004-05:00

some Meiby photos:

We had a little relapse back into Meiby's mysterious issue last week so she's now on a strict prescription diet. So far so good but we're still not really sure what's wrong with her. She's lost a lot of weight through all of this but she seems just as energetic and happy as ever. The vet seems to think it's allergies so the new food is as hypo-allergenic as it gets and we'll keep her on it for at least 6 weeks with absolutely no other food or treats. That means no carrots :(

quick update

2009-08-21T10:52:00.002-05:00

Meiby has been doing very well for the past 10 days or so. We switched her to Wellness CORE food and she loves it! Seems to be treating her well. We still don't know exactly what happened with her though.

cooking with tofu

2009-08-13T11:08:00.005-05:00

On a whim, I picked up some tofu at the grocery store the other day. We're not exactly vegetarians over here but we definitely enjoy lots of veg. cuisine. Plus, I don't love dealing with raw meat. So anyway, I found this recipe over at Yeah, That "Vegan" Shit (originally from 101cookbooks) and, because I also just happened to have Brussels sprouts in the fridge, decided to try it out. It was delicious! My first successful attempt at cooking with tofu... and Nick LOVED it, too. Besides the chopping it was really quick and easy so I may just have to make it again. So here it is: Caramelized Tofu and Brussels Sprouts (served with leftover cilantro lime basmati rice)

And here's Meiby helping in the kitchen again. She looks pissed but really she was just mid-blink:

She's been doing much better the last few days. The vet says to give it a little time and if she continues to have problems we can switch her to a very bland or prescription food. For now we're back to a normal twice a day feeding schedule with half rice/cottage cheese and half high-quality kibble. We had been feeding her just rice/cheese 4 times a day and I think that was overkill. So, we'll see how this goes...

Wordless Wednesday

2009-08-12T13:50:00.001-05:00

health update

2009-08-11T11:04:00.003-05:00

not a pretty story so skip this one if you're squeamish...

Well Friday we started feeding Meiby a diet of rice and cottage cheese. She was keeping it down but started to refuse to eat it which is very strange for her (though she did eventually eat everything). By Sunday night we were starting to worry about the fact that she wasn't pooping regularly so we started mixing in a little kibble (of a completely new food) to her bland diet hoping that might help intending to call the vet on Monday morning. In the morning she had pooped so we thought maybe she was starting to digest properly. Until Monday night when she threw up pretty much everything she had eaten in the past 4 days. So this morning I didn't feed her and Nick will call the vet to see what to do now. She's acting pretty normal and is clearly hungry. She keeps going into the kitchen and staring at her bag of food. So, we have no idea what's going on with her but hopefully the vet can offer some advice...

sick again

2009-08-07T09:23:00.003-05:00

Poor Meiby! I'm still not sure exactly why but starting Tuesday night she started regurgitating her meals. We weren't too worried at first because it's happened before but we kept an eye on her Wednesday and she continued to puke everything she ate. I looked around and checked all of her toys for missing chunks to see if maybe she ate something she shouldn't have. I found nothing.

So Thursday morning Nick took her to the vet, they took x-rays and didn't find anything. They gave her a shot to prevent vomiting and told us not to give her any food or water until Friday afternoon. Starting today at lunch we have to feed her only rice and cottage cheese for a week and then we'll probably switch her to a different food. We're not sure if she developed an allergy to her food or what. (BTW, we were feeding her Nutro Naturals Lamb and Rice which is apparently not great quality.)

Anyway, we feel so bad for poor Meiby. She's been extra sweet and we still can't give her any food. She seems very tired (see photo above) and confused (um, excuse me, what happened to dinner? Did I miss it?)

Happy Pugiversary!

2009-08-01T07:58:00.007-05:00

One year ago today we first brought Meiby home with us. She was very shy at first but immediately became a member of the family. She has changed quite a bit since then but we couldn't have asked for a better pup.

Her first 2 days with us she wouldn't eat - now she lives for food and will eat anything you give her without question.

For the first 2 weeks we had a "no dogs on the couch" rule - that quickly went out the window when we realized it was just sad to have a lap dog that you have to sit on the floor to cuddle with.

She was scared to death of her first squeaky toy.

It took us a week to work out a sleeping arrangement that worked for all of us. Having her sleep in her crate in our bedroom worked for about 8 months until she figured out that the earlier she wakes me up with her whining, the earlier she gets food. Now that we trust her loose in the house, she just sleeps out in the living room.

One of the first toys I bought for Meiby was a Nylabone Dental Chew. She wouldn't even look at it for months and then all of a sudden it was her favorite thing ever. We've replaced it 5 times now and moved up to a bigger size. It's become her comfort bone.

We kept Meiby crated whenever we were gone for the first 6 months or so. We experimented with leaving her loose for short periods of time until we finally trusted her enough to leave her loose. Now she's a full time free range pug!

We had an extremely cold and snowy winter this past year and while Meiby loves the snow, she's no fan of the sub-zero temperatures. Because of this we trained her to use puppy pads when needed and this is, for better or worse, still in effect.

On January 3rd she was a year old. We switched her to adult food and had taught her lots of tricks.

This summer I took Meiby to obedience classes and she is much more observant now. She'll now wait for us to tell her to eat rather than diving into her food. She will also "come" on command pretty consistently and "get off" of me or the couch when I tell her to. She's still begs like crazy though... perhaps because someone spoils her ;)

It has been just wonderful having Meiby around for the past year. We're so lucky to have such a sweet little pug around! We loves you Meibs :)

Wordless Wednesday

2009-07-29T14:03:00.000-05:00