Celebrating our area's four-legged, feathered and finned friends

By iList Paducah's Nikki D. May

November 30, 2009

I Never Liked Pugs

I never liked pugs. They are such funny-looking-bashed-in-faced-snorting-and-snoring-pig-like creatures! But when I went to visit my best friend in Boulder, Co., I experienced love at first sight for the first time!

I was with Denise when she went to pick up her first pug, Biscuit. I teased her mercilessly about getting such a weird looking little creature, but we bonded on the drive home as she slept curled up on the back of my neck. By the time we got her home, I had to admit she was kind of cute. A year or so later they got Scotti, a little boy pug. Biscuit and Scotti. Biscotti. A little too cute, right? Denise was considering the possibility of puppies in the future, but Biscuit and Scotti were obviously snoring their way through their sex education classes and Biscuit became an unwilling mother on Easter day!

Biscuit wanted no part of taking care of her three little baby boys and one baby girl. She had to be held down to force her to feed her puppies. Denise decided to give two puppies to close friends and keep two for herself. She was going to keep one girl and boy. But when I held little Sara for the first time, it was all over. She was mine! I’m not sure Denise has ever forgiven me for that, but she let me have her! She wasn’t old enough to come home with me on that trip, so a few weeks later Denise’s husband Ron flew from Denver to Atlanta to deliver her to me.

Sara instantly bonded with my older dog, Bear, and decided that she wasn’t my dog after all, she was his. She slept with him, followed him around everywhere, even climbed on top of him anytime he would lie down. The three of us moved to Paducah together and lived happily together for a few years. In December of 2006, while I was in Mexico, Bear died and left Sara all alone. When I returned home, Sara and I just looked at each other like, now what? What do we do without Bear?

So we (Sara and I) impulsively decided to add this little terror to the family. They said he was a Yorkie-poo, but I refer to him as a dirty mop. His name was Sklyer, but it quickly became Scruffy, because - well, look at him! He was an adorable tiny little black fur-ball when we got him, but he’s become a scruffy gray-haired mess.

It’s been two and a half years and Sara still can’t decided if she loves her pesky little brother or not. On the plus side? Sara now likes me more than when she had Bear to worship. We also have another sweet boy in the house who we adopted from the Humane Society. I fell in love with him instantly partly because he looks a bit like Bear and when I walked past his cage he reached his paw out through the chain link and grabbed my arm and stared at me with his sad brown eyes! So now Sara and I have a house full again. Thanks to Patience Renzulli for suggesting the name Kodiak as a tribute to Bear. Kodi, Scruffy and Sara are great company here in the home office!

Sara is the first small dog I’ve ever had. German Shepherds and Doberman Pinschers are more my style. Pugs are goofy looking, they snort and snore and their eyes bulge out of their heads! Because of their protrusion, their eyes are very prone to injury - and that’s exactly what we’ve been dealing with recently here at iList Paducah’s tech and design center! A few weeks ago I noticed that Sara was rubbing her eye and it was swollen shut and oozing. I took her to see the wonderful folks at Lone Oak Animal Clinic where they determined that she had injured her eye on something - no telling what - and there was a HUGE hole in the center of her cornea. Not just a scratch, but a tear - with whatever goo is behind the cornea bulging out! The fabulous Dr. Mitzi Richardson thought we may need to do some surgery on it to keep it from rupturing. Yes, you heard me, to keep her eyeball from rupturing! But after conferring with another vet, they decided to wait on that and try drops and antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory, not to mention the oh-so-stylish Elizabethan collar to keep her from rubbing or scratching it further! The swelling and oozing went away in a couple of days and it didn’t seem to bother her after that. But it was still pretty gruesome looking… with a big hole in the center of her eye and a red puffy bulge poking out! Ick! Finally, after about a three weeks, it seems to be healing really nicely… nice and smooth with the goo tucked back inside where it belongs. I really thought she’d never be able to see out of that eye again, but I think she actually can. I did a highly professional home vision test - covering one eye and moving my finger around in front of the other to see if she would track it. And she did! Yay Sara!

Now maybe she can get on with her job of catching the mice in my kitchen…