The Best Day Of The Year

It's here. Today is the very best, most important day in the whole year. Everybody is celebrating with candy and champagne and lots of smiles and kisses. Tonight thousands of peeps will go out to have a special meal and maybe dance, all to celebrate this day, MY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Yes, ten years ago today, my two brothers, Othello and Aaron Pressley and I, Fudge were born in a little Arizona town. Othello and I both went on to be show dogs. I don't know what Pressley did, but I think he may have become a singer.

Then I came here to live with Mom and Dad and the others and became a dad myself. 

Which brings us to today. We're having a party this afternoon and look what we're having. Check out all those sprinkles.

So, all of you in Blogville and beyond, go out and enjoy yourselves tonight and eat lots of candy and dance and party, because IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Your pal, Fudge the Valentine Dog

Eyes Wide Open

Today was Noah's checkup on his infected eye. It's been two weeks since we started aggressive treatment for the infection and I was anxious to hear what the vet thought. The eye looks much better to me. For the last four days the redness has been gone and so has the cloudiness. Best of all, he's not squinting anymore. He opens his eyes wide to look at me when I speak to him.

First Dr B looked into his eye with a bright light that Noah objected to. It didn't get better because next was the pressure check and Noah didn't want to open his eye for that. It took a while and the doctor didn't trust the reading. He want into the back room and checked the pressure on two other dogs to make sure his meter was working properly. Then he came back and checked Noah again.

The pressure was 8 in each eye. The good news is that they were the same. The bad news is that the pressure was too low. He was hoping for 15 - 18. He said the infection appears to be gone, but he doesn't know what's causing the low pressure. So he placed a call to the university to speak with a specialist.

After giving Noah's history to the other doctor, they decided that given Noah's age and what he's been thru recently, 8 was an acceptable reading. It was suggested that we recheck his pressure in a month and hope that it's a little higher.

The specialist also suggested checking both Noah and Fudge for antibodies for Crypto since it's been a couple years. In March we'll do titers on both of them. It may give us some ideas for treating their ongoing intestinal issues.

Dr B told me not to obsess on the low pressure, but to be happy that the infection is gone and that Noah is feeling well and has bright sparkly eyes again. So that is exactly what I'm going to do. We'll continue his medications until they're gone and try not to think about unpleasant things.

While I was taking Noah's photo for this post, Sebastian and Mackey both insisted on having theirs taken too, so here they are.

Dental Health Month

February is Canine Dental Health Month, so we're going to show you our dental routine. One of Dr B's specialties is dentistry, which is a mixed blessing. Yes, it's good to have someone watching out for my dogs' dental health, but we can't get away with anything. Every time we visit, for whatever reason, he can't resist peeking into their mouths and pointing our where I need to concentrate my attention.

So here's our routine that we try to stick to, except when I slack off. First let's start with a professional cleaning by the vet. Most of my adults dogs have had them. Tess is due, probably next month. After cleaning the teeth and charting any problem areas, Dr B applies a sealer. This smooths out any scratches or places where bacteria can grab on and start to grow. At home, once a week, I apply Ora Vet Gel, which renews the sealer and helps keep the teeth clean.

I have two volunteers today to help me demonstrate our procedures. Fudge is very good about having his teeth cleaned and Noah is positively obsessive about it. If Noah had his way, we'd brush after every treat.

We start by applying toothpaste to our brush. My dogs all seem to like the taste of this vanilla mint flavored paste. I like the smell. They also make other flavors such as chicken, beef and fish. I'm sure my dogs would love having fish flavored toothpaste, but I'm not sure I could stand the smell first thing in the morning.

Lately we've been using Maxi Guard instead of toothpaste. It's an cleaning gel that they all like and it has an extra bonus. Sebastian and Syd and Mac object to having their teeth brushed and I don't like fighting with them. I can squeeze a little of this gel on both sides of their mouth and their tongues spread it around. It's not as good as brushing, but it helps for uncooperative dogs and it really helps with bad breath. When Sebastian first came to us, his breath would knock you over. After a week of Maxi Guard, he had nice sweet breath.

Whichever we use, paste or gel, we apply it liberally to the brushes. I sit on a little stool and the dog sits in front of me. I start brushing and singing. Yes, singing. I read that one should brush as long as it takes to sing two verses of Old McDonald's Farm. I have a terrible voice but my dogs don't mind, so I sing and they sit there and get their individual special attention.

Fudge has some chipped teeth from jumping and hitting the edge of a  table on his way down, so once a week he has a flouride treatment. We just put a little ball of this on a swab and dab it on each of the chipped teeth. He doesn't like it much and Dr B says it does taste bad, so we try to do it quickly followed by a treat.

That concludes our brushing routine, but we do encourage chewing to a certain extent. Some of my dogs are big chewers. Morgan is one and never had a lot of trouble with her teeth. Sky broke a canine tooth chewing on a walnut in the yard and needed a root canal. Tsar also had a root canal after breaking a tooth. For that reason we don't give hard objects like hooves and antlers to any of our dogs. Puppies get to chew on Nylabone toys, especially the rings.

This month our Chewy selection, in keeping with Dental Health Month, was a bag of Blue Dental Bones. We've never tried these and I didn't know what to expect.

We received the regular size, but they seemed quite large, so I broke them in half.

I handed them out, expecting the dogs to be busy with them for awhile. Wrong! They chewed them right up fast. OK, the results are that they liked them, but I'm not sure how helpful they are in cleaning teeth. They didn't seem to require much chewing at all. I'd consider these more as large treats than an actual dental aid.

Will we get them again? Probably not. There was nothing wrong with them, but they were a little too big for a treat and not hard enough for a real chewing workout.

Portuguese 'WATER' Dogs

We love water. Water is our middle name. We love any kind of water. You've all seen pictures of us playing in water. Sometimes we play in our little pool.

Sometimes we go to the lake and do some real swimming in deep water.

We hear that a lot of you have some of this cold white stuff in your yards. Well, we love to play in snow, too. It's just another form of water and lots of fun.

We don't have any snow yet but we do have another form of water that we like a lot. Mom doesn't like it very much but we think it's really fun to play in. It's called MUD.

Today was warm and sunny so Mom sent us all out to play for an hour before dinner. When she called us in, this is what she saw.

Lola.

Bailey.

Norma Jean.

Mud feels good between our toes and it's a great conditioner for our coats. At least that's our story and we're sticking to it.

Your pal, Fudge

Goodbye Uncle Primo

When I was thinking about breeding Samba, the owner of the stud I planned to use contacted me and said she had a promising puppy. She asked if I'd consider taking him and waiting till he was old enough, then using him as the sire of my pups. In the picture she sent, he didn't look all that promising, but then he was only four weeks old. He had another strike against him too. He was brown and I really preferred black Porties.

She told me that the pup had a sterling pedigree and when she sent a copy I saw that she was right. His sires and grandsires were the three dogs I had considered as possible mates for Samba. She also pointed out that his maternal grandmother was a littler mate of one of the top dogs at that time, Primo. His full name was MBIS, MBISS CH Del Sur's Makin All The Right Moves AOM. He was called Primo and he was a beauty. He was ranked in the top ten for three years and he won honors at two PWDCA National Specialties. Primo was a beauty. It was the reason I agreed to take the funny looking pup.

                                                       Primo  10/25/2000 - 2/2/2015

Today we received word that Primo has gone to the bridge. He  ruptured a disc in his back and became paralyzed. At his age, letting him go was the kindest act.

Yes, as you guessed, that funny looking pup was our very own Fudge, who we think turned out to be a very handsome dude. He's the father of all our other Porties, so he did a great job.

We are happy that you were our Uncle Primo and sorry that you have left us. You will never be forgotten. Rest in peace Uncle Primo.

A Different Look At Agility

Hi Everybody,
Are some of you snowed in? It got really cold here last night so I climbed in bed beside Mom and stayed nice and warm. She complained that I was putting her leg to sleep, but isn't that what you're supposed to do at night? I like to sleep really close, sometimes on top of her.

This morning it was snowing but not enough to stay on the ground. I rolled in a patch of snow but came inside covered with straw. The weather has been kind of crazy lately. One day last week when lots of our friends were digging out of huge snow drifts, it was 68 degrees here. This morning it was 14. Yikes, that's cold!

So today we're playing in the house or napping lots. Remember a couple weeks ago Dad brought a short tunnel up into the living room for us. Well, I really like that thing and several times a day I get in and roll onto my back and kick my legs. I shout and kick and pretend I'm fighting a big strong enemy and of course, I'm winning. Mom and Dad call it my Kung Fu exercise. I used to do it on the carpet or on one of the dog beds, but the tunnel is better because it fights back and rolls me around.

Mom has tried to get a picture of me doing my Kung Fu, but when I see her move I have to jump up and follow her. She's my special person and I can't let her out of my sight. She says she's going to sit on the couch and hold her camera ready till she catches me, but if I see that camera, I have to stop and pose.

Still, Mom has caught some of my friends playing in the tunnel. Every morning Miss Morgan goes into the tunnel and sometimes she does her morning stretching exercises in there.

Noah won't go in it because that kid thinks everything is a plot to get him. Sebastian thinks it's a good place to nap. That guy isn't exactly a ball of energy.

Mackey runs thru it too, but she doesn't stop, just passes right thru really fast. Mom says we'd all be bad at agility, but we tell her that there's more than one way to do agility and this is our way. 
Your pal, Fudge

Rocky Road

It's been a bumpy ride to "Happy Eyes". Over the past few weeks we've hit several bumps in the road and had to make changes in direction to get around them. But Friday we ran into a boulder.

When last we met, Noah was taking tobramycin eye drops to clear up a reaction to the eye drops he was taking for a reaction to an antibiotic. Are we clear? When we started the drops, they seemed to be helping, but mid week, he started squinting again and the eye looked worse. We had an early morning appointment with Dr B to check out the eye and see if were back to dealing with dry eye syndrome.

Unfortunately I was right, the eye was worse. Dr B put on a pair of crazy looking glasses with microscopes in front to examine Noah's eye. From the look on his face and his "hmmmm" reaction, I knew it wasn't good. He said there was corneal edema and we needed to check his pressure.

Noah wasn't crazy about the pressure check but the doc repeated it three times to be sure it was accurate. The pressure in the good eye was 6, the pressure in the bad eye was 12. Both readings are within the normal range but they shouldn't be so far apart. The diagnosis is anterior uveitis, a serious infection.

We started Noah on some different eye drops and a strong antibiotic plus prednisone.  I'm pleased that after only a couple days, Noah is opening his  eye and not squinting anymore. The redness has come down quite a bit and though the eye doesn't look normal yet, it looks much more like a normal eye than it did a few days ago.

Noah is tolerating the new meds well. He sits very quietly for his drops because there's a special treat afterwards. The pred hasn't caused too many extra runs outside and none during the night. He's such a good boy and this all seems very unfair.

So fasten your seatbelts because this will be a lengthy treatment and we aren't sure what the final results will be.