Zoe needs entertainment.

Zoe has been inside a small cage for three weeks now and she is getting a little stir crazy to say the least. She is almost climbing the walls of her cage at times. Thank goodness she is feeling much better. Her back legs have almost regained all their function. She has also recovered well from her tumor removal surgery. Now that she is feeling much better she thinks it's time to get out of the cage. Sadly for her, she does not have any "get out of jail" cards. She doesn't play board games very well. She does however get some free time out of her cage to stretch her legs or sit up on the couch with Michael & I. Her back is still healing though, so we have to be very careful with her. Zoe has really been very good in her cage. She has only started barking recently, mostly out of boredom I imagine. I went out today to get her some toys to keep her busy while caged up. They are called Busy Buddy toys. You can stuff pieces of food/treats inside these toys. As they are rolled around or chewed on, the treats will fall out. So far she is enjoying them.

The flag goes back up.

Earlier in the year we got a nasty-gram from our association people about the pug flag. We had it displayed in the front of our townhouse in the shared landscaping. Apparently that is a violation. Even though the association couldn't give me the exact location of where to find this violation in the community handbook. I was told I could go in front of the board and ask for approval to display my flag. Are you kidding! That's crazy. So I just let it go, and took down the flag. As I was driving through our neighborhood the other day I noticed another townhouse has a flag up. A few other homes also have decorative items in the shared landscaping. So the flag is going back up! I did put the flag inside of the porch area, that way they can't say it's in the shares landscape area. We'll see how long it takes to get another nasty-gram.

Frankenpug

I have good news and bad news on Zoe. She is recovering very well from IVDD. She only stumbles every once in a while & is almost walking normal again. We have been doing acupuncture along with homeopathic and conventional medicine. While we were in for acupuncture the other day I noticed a lump on her chest. The dermatologist looked at it and thought it was suspicious of cancer. She took a small sample and looked at it under the microscope, it was wall to wall mast cells. Pugs are prone to mast cell tumors. We went through this with Winston. His tumors came back as grade I. The easiest type to cure by simply removing the tumor. Zoe had three small masses removed and sent out to the lab. Hopefully they will come back as a low grade I. Our poor little Zoe, she turns 7 years old and gets two major issues in the same week.

This year Michael worked at the St. Pete Beach fireworks show. Just as we did last year, I came along for a great show. You can't get any better seats. We sat inside a large roped off section around the launch sight of the fireworks. This keeps the public back and out of harms way. So we all sat back and got ready to watch a great show.



As the grand finale began a large explosion was seen on the ground. The rest of the fireworks then detonated on the ground. Everyone jumped up out of their seats and ran for cover. It felt as if we were in the middle of a war. The explosions were so loud that they blew out some of the windows from the hotel behind us. I have never witnessed anything like this. It was mass ciaos, everyone running for cover while screaming. There we several injuries but nothing major. Michael & I came away shook up, but without a scratch on us. Here is the link from a local news station with more information along with pictures and video. Click here.



A few days later I attended a bachelorette party for a friend that I work with. We were told to bring the usual practical joke gift. I thought it would be cute to make her a towel cake and fill it with things she will need for her honeymoon. I included sunscreen, Bath and Body Works pineapple lotion & body splash, Ibuprofen (For the next morning after a day spent drinking and basking in the sun.), Rolaids Plus [with gas relief] (For the next morning after eating to much on the cruise ship.), Chapstick, Tide to go stick and a small picture frame with "And they lived happily ever after..." printed inside. The best part about the towel cake is that the bottom was made out of two oversize bath towels embroidered with "Just Married". That way the newlyweds could take the towels with them on the cruise and use them to lay out by the pool. While the bride & groom got married Michael & got to watch their two fur kids, Toby and Gizmo. Our dogs had so much fun playing with them. It was our very own doggie park at home. :-)

Not a good weekend for Zoe.

Our poor dear Zoe is "down in the rear" as the veterinary folk say. On Thursday Michael & I went to a movie and came back three hours later to find Zoe panting and unable to walk without stumbling. I rushed her into the vet and it was determined that she has IVDD also known as intervertebral disk disease. One of her spinal disks is protruding onto her spinal cord causing loss of coordination to her legs. We're not sure what has caused this, and sometimes no trauma is needed for this to happen. So for now Zoe is on strict cage rest, steroids and pain medication. Hopefully with time the swelling causing her dysfunction will resolve and she will be walking normally again. If not we may have to consider surgery to correct the problem. Let's pray she will recover on her own.