Ginger's Puppies

When Ginger first arrived here with distended teats, we assumed that she had been nursing puppies. Mr. P. took her to the local animal hospital for a check-up and shots, and scheduled her to be spayed 2 weeks later.

Yesterday she was spayed. When the procedure was done, someone at the hospital called to let us know she was OK, and to tell us that Ginger had been pregnant still and that her puppies were aborted.

I can't imagine how Dr. D. failed to notice her pregnancy during her first exam. Her teats were still distended. When Patch was pregnant enough for her teats to distend, the vet was able to palpate her puppies. So I have to ask if Dr. D. didn't bother doing that because he was lazy or uninterested or what on earth. I don't like him anyway so it's hard for me to be objective about this.

A different vet (Dr. M.) did the surgery yesterday, and I can't really blame him for the abortion. Dr. D. would've put nothing about a pregnancy he didn't notice in Ginger's file, so I suppose when Dr. M. opened her up and saw the puppies, he assumed we had decided to abort them rather than calling us to ask what we wanted to do.

We certainly don't need another litter of puppies to care for and adopt out, but if we had known that Ginger was still pregnant, we wouldn't have decided to terminate the pregnancy.

Cheez Ballz!

Santy Paws brought Polly a huge jar of cheese balls for Christmas. When he presented it to her, her curly tail wagged so fast that we thought she might take off like a helicopter.

As you can see in this photo, Polly is already on the verge of obesity (she takes after her mother). Our vet says this is a common tendency in pugs. I have a hard time understanding how a little dog with such a big personality, who is so very, very busy in her roles as Ear Hygienist, Beard Inspector, Hall Monitor, Dining Supervisor and Traffic Management Director, would not be burning at least as many calories as she takes in. I worried a bit that the cheese balls would add to her girth.

As it turns out, Polly has little opportunity to overindulge in cheese balls because the instant my hand moves towards the jar, all the dogs come running. Cheese balls rain down from heaven and are gobbled up the instant they hit the floor. Then everybody licks the floor for 3-4 minutes. With all that competition, Polly's lucky to get a single cheese ball to savor.

The new living room

Our living room used to look like the rec room at an insane asylum. An ancient television set, a hodge podge of 2nd or 3rd-hand chairs, and a hodge podge of "residents".

Now it looks more like a bedroom at a frat house the morning after a beer bash.