Otis, my new pug puppy

I must apologize because I didn't write last week, and I should warn you I probably wont write next week. My goal is to get a post up once a week, but if you are wondering why I've missed you will soon discover from the following.

If you are reading this blog and are my friend on facebook, you probably know about Otis. My new pug puppy. And if I say so myself, he is so stinking cute. 

But he came with some problems. Now would be a good time to mention, how if you get a puppy, there is only a 50-50% chance of him living. So, every time I came home there was a bit of fear I would find him dead. Thankfully a little over a week has proven it not so. Where am I going with this? Every thing that might have been a problem freaked me out. Then on top of that I'm leaving on a 2 week trip tomorrow, so my puppy will be staying with some friends. Because of that I was pretty urgent in wanting to fix any problems immediately. That lead to 4 vet visits, plus a few phone calls. Thankfully getting your dog checked out is free, so as far as money goes it was no problem, but it was a bit straining on my time.

When Otis came he had some major dandruff issues. That lead me into a search for home remedies on how to moisturize his skin. That lead me to a lovely mite known as “walking dandruff”. They are mites that crawl under the skin scales of that animal creating dandruff, and if you look closely it looks like the dandruff is moving, thus the name. Of course that freaked me out, so that was the first vet call. Thankfully, the vet said unlikely! Because his dandruff was everywhere not just confined to one spot.

After a couple days of applying baby oil, Listerine and warm water combination (odd I know!) his skin became normal!

Then he started scooting on his butt, and crying in ridiculous pain. Another vet call. This one taught me about pin worms (they live in the big intestine and at night lay eggs on the anal hole causing severe itching) and clogged anal sacs ( apparently pugs are prone to them). That led to a vet visit. Thankfully it wasn't clogged anal sacs, and according to them not worms. But he did have ear problems.

After medicine, further watching and more calls and visits I came to this conclusion. My puppy is healthy, but has dry skin. The only thing really wrong with him is ear mites (I know random), which is why he was crying in pain. After applying some medicine his pain has gone away, but it will take a bit longer to get rid of the ear mites. As for the scooting, a cause of dry and itchy skin. So I will be applying some of my home remedy to his back end.

Thankfully that's all. He knows his name and hes great with kids. But because of the vet visits I have not had time to work on potty training....that will be the next goal.