Update on the neighbors and us

Well, the raccoons seem to have moved on. We haven't seen or heard them since Thursday. Which is awesome. Mom did grease the gutter and the side of the house, but that only seemed to slow them down. 

What did seem to make an impact was the garden hose. Mom spent a long time squirting the little ones with the hose and when they ran inside the chimney (not in use), she squirted water in the chimney. There was also a lot of spotlighting and pine cone throwing and general harassment courtesy of mom. Whatever the reason, it seemed to have worked. Now, let's hope it sticks!

FYI, if you have ever have raccoons in your yard, do everything you can to make them leave. They can carry a really nasty parasite called raccoon roundworm in their poop. There is no real effective treatment and people can catch it too. This is really a terrible thing to have and the best thing to do is prevent it. So kick their butts out! 

In other news, we were supposed to have our dentals on Monday. However, we had both lost so much weight that the vet recommended that we not go under anesthesia. 

Mom knew that we had been losing weight, just didn't realize how much. Unfortunately, Petunia has lost 3 pounds and Tallulah 2. Not good. We had our blood tested including thyroid levels and our poop screened for parasites. Poop tests were clear. Tallulah's blood work was good except her calcium was a little low. Petunia's thyroid was very high. 

The good news is that we don't have the raccoon parasite. The bad news is that we don't have a real reason for Tallulah to lose that much weight. The best news is that we get to eat double our food! 

The plan is to eat twice our normal food and get weighed again in a week. If we are gaining weight, great. If not, more tests. Petunia's thyroid medication has been reduced and she'll get retested in a month. Tallulah's been having a poop issue for months now so that might be the reason. And their food restriction of fish and potatoes could explain the low calcium. It might also somewhat explain the weight loss although Isabelle hasn't lost weight. 

So we'll just eat as much as we can and hope for the best. 

Upstairs neighbors :/

Mom was making a pair of pugjamas for the winner of the Pug Rescue of San Diego's Facebook auction the other night when we heard a noise outside. It sounded like tree branches scraping the aluminum siding. 

Only the wind wasn't blowing really hard and the tree outside the window wasn't moving. 

So we go outside and what do we see? 

That is one big raccoon. She probably weighs as much as all three of us put together!

Mom kept pointing the flashlight at the raccoon and telling her to get down. She kept checking and eventually it was gone that night. 

We were oblivious, thankfully. Didn't even look up!

Well, today we were outside doing our morning business and mom happened to look up. 

 Not one, but two! And these look like kids. Not sure where mom was. 

To give a little perspective, the window you see in the bottom picture is on the second floor of the house. The attic is tall enough to be a third floor. When our contractors work on the roof, they have to bring a special ladder to get up there, it's so tall. 

The chimney you see covers our furnace exhaust so hopefully the critters aren't trying to crawl into our furnace. That would be bad. However, there's a rain cap that's been pushed to the side up there, so it's possible. Our contractor is coming up with a plan to A) check and repair any damage these upstairs neighbors may have done and B) find a way to encourage these guys to move on as humanely as possible. If possible, we are just going to evict them and keep them from making themselves at home up there. If we have to, we'll have a wildlife trapper come and relocate them. Mom is thinking of greasing the gutter pipe that they are using to climb. 

Not sure if that will work or not, but anyone else have a better idea?

We live in a city, for Pete's sake! 

These raccoons need to find a home in a place with no cars and no pugs one third of their size. 

Although raccoon poop might be pretty tasty. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tallulah Grumpy Pants and Petunia Happy Face

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

Seriously, don't hate. 

Southern "Fried", not Southern "Frozen"!

So we're trying a new thing here in the Southern Fried household. 

Mom decided to put our breakfast into kongs and freeze them so we'd have to expend a little more effort in eating. 

You know, instead of inhaling our food in mere seconds.

The theory is that by working harder to get our food, we'd be less nutso when she got home from work.  And it would make us work our brains a little. Back when we were puppies and ate kibble, she used Amazaballs to slow us down and it worked great. 

So, today we started. 

Petunia

Tallulah

It did not go as planned. 

Oh, we started right in on them before mom left for work. But at the end of the day, only one pug had finished her kong. Licked it completely clean. And it wasn't the pug that mom thought it would be. 

It was Petunia!

Tallulah is the pug who will eat anything, anytime, anywhere. Remember the time she ate most of a bag of Isabelle's joint supplement? Remember the time she ate an entire peach, pit and all? And the poop? Mom figured that Tallulah would work that kong until every last bit of quinoa and fish was gone. 

Nope. She left most of it in the kong, even though it was thawed out by the time mom got home. 

We're trying it again tomorrow since the kongs are already loaded and frozen. If Tallulah doesn't figure it out, we have a plan B. Mom will put the food in a regular bowl and freeze it into a patty that way. Tallulah chomps and gobbles, so it has to be frozen to the bottom of the bowl. 

Hopefully something will work.

Really, mom should have known that Petunia would lick that kong. 

Just check her out eating Frosty Paws!

Wordless Wednesday-Teenage Mutant Ninja Pug edition

Brrrr!

It's about to get cold here! Not Idaho or Canada cold, but cold. Now, you have to realize that as our name implies, we are southern. Cold to us is below 60 and really cold is 40 or less. Remember this picture of mom in her parka in New York? 

See how Miss Kathy is in a jacket? And Miss Christy and mom are bundled up? It was in the 60's that day. The native (Miss Kathy) was dressed normally. It was the southerners who were freezing!

Anyway, it's going to be cold this next week for us. And you readers in the north may not know this, but heat pumps don't produce heat when it gets in the 20's. That means our heater upstairs just doesn't work. When it gets really bad, we drag out the air mattress and sleep downstairs where the furnace runs on gas.

We plan to spend the week doing a lot of snuggling in our pugjamas and playing with our friends Lilo and Stitch! They are coming to visit with us for a few days. Hopefully, two extra pugs will help keep everyone warm upstairs. Otherwise, five pugs and three cats plus one human probably won't sleep well on a twin air mattress. Cue the grumpy human!

Hope your week is warm and snuggly!

Wordless Wednesday