The Ballad of Johnny & June—Verse 3

Previously, two elder pugs were accepted by us for fostering, leaving us with a total of four pugs. After a small amount of adjustment, we all settled into a slightly fragile balance.

The Dental Story

You’re right; we’ve been here before. A rescue pug (or two) who comes to us with poor teeth that need a lot of expensive care? I think it comes with the territory with old pugs.

This time, though, it was the JCs—so they weren't, strictly speaking, our pugs. We were fostering them . . . but that was beginning to feel like a much more long-term deal than had originally been planned. The thing with pugs is, they make themselves at home. They leave hair on your furniture, they breathe noisily through the nights, and they sneeze in your face. And then, before you know it, you belong to them.

So, as foster pugs, they (and we) had to wait for charity funds to come through before their obviously problematic teeth could be checked out. Charities have to work hard for their money and the kind of cash that gets two old pugs the care they deserve takes a while to collect together.

We got the word in early November: funds were in place and could we make an appointment? They’d get a full workout—x-rays, medical, and any dental work they need. We knew, from being breathed and coughed on regularly by both of them that they were each about to experience some major oral surgery.

I took them in on a Thursday, making my first drive to the charity’s preferred vet, ably assisted by The Student. June, as ever, was oblivious in the back of the car. Big JC shivered with anxiety. He was never a good passenger.

When we arrived, a nice lady came to meet us. She took their leads, thanked us very much, and took them away. I tried not to look at their sad faces as they both looked to us, seeming to plead for us to rescue them from whatever was coming next. It wasn't until I was back in the car that I realized that I hadn’t even said goodbye.

It was a sad drive back home; the mood briefly lifted when we stopped off for coffee and pastries. Because that’s how the world works. It’s biology. There’s no fighting it. Sugar makes everything OK, but just for a little while.

The pugs were staying overnight, so we had the whole evening without them. We thought it would be fun—at least less work—and I guess it was. We only had two munchkins to walk, two munchkins to feed, two munchkins to corral to the bedroom at bed time. But there was also a new gap where one very large and one very loud pug should have been.

The real action happened the next day.

Slowly, and unexpectedly, my wife started receiving photos from the vet: This is your pug doped out. This is his mouth before we fixed it. This is his mouth now. It was all very gory and I didn’t really appreciate it at the time, but afterward I at least could be thankful for the customer care. But I'm not going to share the photos here. Have this one instead.

As expected, they lost most of their teeth. I don’t remember the numbers on how many they started with and how many each subsequently lost. I remember that, after the dust settled and they were back home, they were left with 14 teeth between them.

We brought them home with bags of pills and pee pads to catch their bloody drool. Being a pug parent is not for people who like to be pristine all the time. Or ever. On the drive home, I sat in the back of the car with the doped-up pups. Little JC, tiny and bendy, just curled up and slept. Big JC was more awake. Every now and again, he’d sit up straight, eyes wide open, and push his face into mine. I could almost hear him say, “Wooooh, maaaaan, cray-ZEE.”

After having gone through the same thing with Jordan, we felt we knew what was going to happen next, but every pug is a different experience and so we’ve been blindsided a couple of times. June and Big JC both developed coughs—imagine a trumpet made of grumpy frogs. That was the song we lived with for about a week. There is no sound like a pug with a cold.

But more trying was Big JC’s reaction to the pain meds/muscle relaxants he was now taking. Basically, the muscles that seemed most relaxed by the pills were the ones around his bladder. Before we realized what was happening, he’d accidentally dribbled on the wooden floor, the carpet, and the sofa.

On closer inspection, it wasn't just that his bladder muscles were floppy (no, I am not a vet)—it was that, in addition, Big JC was peeing all the time. I took him outside and he peed three or four times. Inside, he continued, little drops, big puddles, everything in between. Overnight he had become the most efficient pee-making factory in the world.

Short-term, we bought pee pads and belly bands. Well, first I learned what a belly band was. Then I bought a thousand of them. Big JC walked around like a little furry sumo wrestler and, mostly, the furniture and the carpets were safe. As long as the bands stayed where they were supposed to. 

Reader, this went on for two weeks. The vet was at a loss as to what was causing it. We tried a few suggestions but, whatever we did, JC just kept peeing. And then, almost exactly 14 days after his op, JC just stopped peeing. We didn't believe it at first, but band after band went on him, and band after band came off clean and dry. He had, just maybe, cured himself.

During this time, though, I learned a little about dealing with an incontinent dog. Let me share my wisdom. Remember to take the pee band off before taking your dog outside. Otherwise, inevitably, you'll watch them trying to pee in a bush but everything going straight into the belly band.

With his diapers, we had to choose whether to go disposable or washable. We went the environmentally unfriendly disposal route because we believed (correctly, as it turned out) that we had a temporary problem on our hands (furniture, carpets . . .). If we had a more permanent issue, I think we’d go for piles of washable belly bands.

Treat it like it’s not a temporary situation, at least emotionally. Although in practical terms, we were optimistic that we were looking at a week or two of unpleasantness, in our minds we had to accept that tomorrow was going to be the same as today—an incontinent dog was going to need his diaper changed and all absorbent surfaces had to be covered in equally absorbent pee pads. Stoicism helped in not feeling overwhelmed by the problem and not feeling resentful toward JC. He wasn’t intentionally peeing all the time . . . he had as little control over the situation as we did.

Don’t let any kind of health issue get between you and loving your dog. Find ways to keep doing things the way you both like to do them. In our case, once we had his devil’s hose wrapped up tight and our furniture covered, life returned to something approaching normalcy.

Once Johnny Cash had two nights and one day of perfect dryness, we put the bands and the pads into a box and put the box in the garage.

Maybe 4 hours after that, he peed on my office carpet. We thought he was trying to communicate, but we weren't sure what he was trying to say.