FLAT PUGLET

Have you ever heard of Flat Stanley? My cousin Sophie told me about him. Stanley started out as a character in a children's book (he got flat when a blackboard fell on him) but is now a world-famous international traveler because of The Flat Stanley Project.

A third grade teacher in Canada started The Flat Stanley Project to get kids interested in letter-writing. It kinda works like this: A Flat Stanley cutout visits a school. The kids treat Flat Stanley like a guest. They take him places, do cool things with him and maybe even give him tasty snacks. Then the kids write about Flat Stanley's visit, take some pictures and mail him off to his next adventure.

Flat Stanley has visited 47 countries and has been photographed with presidents and famous people. Hmmmm....

Genius idea: how about a Flat Puglet?

Flat Puglet could visit foreign lands like Canada. Or New Jersey. He could go to Chicagoland and share Popeyes with Stubby. Or maybe Portland, where Jenny the pug lives. Flat Puglet could also be photographed with famous people. He could become famous and use that fame to save pugs!

Besides, a lot of you live really far away - this could be the only way I'll ever get to visit you. So if you think this sounds as cool as I do...

Email your name & mailing address to: dailypuglet(at)gmail.com

We'll mail a Flat Puglet to the first address we get. Everyone else will be added to a list of hosts. My human will send each host the address of the next host on the list.

A Flat Puglet host promises to:

- take a picture of Flat Puglet in a foreign land (uh, your town)
- tell us something Flat Puglet's visit
- mail Flat Puglet on to the next host

My human will post the pictures & stories for all to enjoy. Kinda cool, huh?

PURGATORY?

We usually go for a really long walk first thing in the morning. But not today. Today my human rushed us to the park for a pee, dumped some food in our bowls and made a break for the door. When I asked where she was going, y'know what she said?

"Purgatory. And no, you can't come."

Then she left. Just like that. Without me and Dutch. I hate when my human goes new places without us. I always feel like I'm missing out on something. Sometimes she'll come home smelling like other dogs too and that kinda freaks me out.

So I asked Google about this purgatory place and got a bunch of different answers:

* a ski resort in Colorado
* a golf course in Indiana
* a place or state of temporary suffering or misery

I don't think my human is golfing or skiing and I hope she isn't suffering or in misery. Uhm, have any of your humans ever gone to purgatory? Have you ever gone there? I mean, do they even allow dogs?? I'm seriously wondering why me & Dutch weren't allowed to go.

REVOLUTION #5

I'm probably not supposed to make a New Year's revolution a month into the new year... but I don't always do what I'm supposed to. Like yesterday at the park when I found a puddle of puke and my human told me not to eat it but I ate it anyway. Sometimes you just have to follow your heart.

So I'm adding a new revolution to my list:

Revolution #5: in 2010 I will listen to my heart.

It started with Jenny the pug. Her videos made me feel good inside so I sent her a Henrietta rubberchicken and an i-might-kinda-love-you poem. I was worried she might think I was an internet stalker, but followed my heart and did it anyway. And you know what happened? Jenny the pug put my picture on her website! She might even like me.

Then when I got that email about Hope the rescued pug, my heart told me to share the news. So I did. And some of your hearts told you to give Hope your cookie money. So you did. Thanks to everyone's donations, Hope is finished with surgery and doing sooooo much better.

See how this heart thing works??

So the other night I just couldn't stop thinking about how scared Hope must have been - hurt and alone, tied to an empty building all night. I was in a nice warm bed and just thinking about it kept me awake all night. So yesterday I followed my heart to the post office... and sent Hope a nice warm bed of her own.

My human bought the bed for me awhile ago. She took a few pictures then put it away and totally forgot to give it to me. I don't really neeeed a new bed - I can always take over (uh, I means SHARE) brother Dutch's. After all that Hope's been through, I think she deserves to be extrasuper comfortable during her recovery. And what could be more extrasuper comfortable than a new bed?

* * *

Thanks again to everyone who helped Hope's story end happy. She is doing AWESOME! The camera's flash made her eye all green and scary, but look at her happy smile! You can read the full update here on SNPR's website.

INTERVENTION

Google says the first step to overcoming an addiction is admitting you have a problem. So here goes:

My name is Puglet and I'm a rockaholic.

There. I said it. But honestly? I really don't see what the problem is. I like to eat rocks, big deal. It could be worse. Some dogs eat dog poop! I tried explaining this to my human and you know what she said? She said poop would be better than rocks.

EEEEEEW!

Gross. I told her the only poo this pug wants to eat comes out of a baby cow in the form of a pie. Anyway, so you know what my human does to stop me from eating rocks? She gets a spray bottle and squirts water at me any time I try to do it. This did nothing to stop the rock eating, but it did make me want to stay faaar away from my human.

So she came up with Plan B: a remote control collar thingy. Any time I tried to eat a rock, the collar would go BEEEP. No idea what that was supposed to accomplish. When the BEEEP didn't stop me, the collar started blasting stinky stuff in my face. It smelled like lemons and made my eyes all red and watery. The thought of hurting my eyes freaked my human out even more than my rock-eating. Bye-bye remote control collar.

We're now at Plan C: pond pebbles. These suckers are huge -!- the biggest ones at Home Depot. I tried to talk my human out of it. We already have perfectly good rocks. Don't waste your money! I told her. She says she'd rather spend money on rocks at Home Depot than at the vet for rock removal.

No idea why the vet would have to remove any rocks. My rocks always, uh, come out on their own. I know Rosie's brother Ollie has rock issues. Is anyone else here a rock eater? If so, any idea how to swallow a giant pond pebble??

* * * TAIL POLL RESULTS ARE IN * * *

Thanks everyone for sharing your tail data! Especially if you woke up from a nap to figure out which way you curl. The results of the experiment couldn't be more (or less?!?) conclusive:

BOY TAILS: 5 lefties / 5 righties
GIRL TAILS: 6 lefties / 6 righties

And then.... there's Bellatrix. Who is a boy AND a girl and curls to the right.

Approx 75% of these tails have single or single-and-then-some curls.

* 2 of the 5 non-pugs have happy tails
* 3 of the 5 non-pugs have pure white tails
* 1 of the 5 non-pugs has a heart shaped spot on his but cheek

CONCLUSION
Humans should pay more attention to the color of our sweaters than the curl of our tails. Pugs should ignore human mistakes and follow Arlo's advice: better to get petted as a she than to be ignored as a he!

TAILS

I know we've talked about humans calling us she when we're a he, or he when we're a really a she. Well, yesterday I got "she'd" again. I had my blue he-sweater on and everything but this guy still thought I was a girl.

When my human gave the guy a look that said "dude, the sweater! look at the sweater!" he didn't even apologize for she-ing me. Nope. He just started talking about my tail.

STRANGER GUY: Someone told me that boy pug tails curl left and girl pug tails curl right.
MY HUMAN: Seriously?
ME [to myself]: Are you high?
STRANGER GUY: Or maybe it's girls to the left, and boys to the right?
MY HUMAN: Uh. No idea. He's a he though.

I've sniffed a lot of pug butts and have never noticed any of this boy/girl tail-curling business. To be honest though, I'm not sure I ever really looked. Could it be true? To find out, let's be scientific and take a poll:

• Are you a he or a she?

• Does your tail curl to the right (clockwise) or left (counterclockwise) when a human looks at you from the front?

• (Optional) Just curious, do you have a single or double curl?

If you're not a pug, that's ok. Just tell us something about your tail (brother Dutch's tail is spotless; his left butt-cheek has a heart-shaped spot on it).

For the record: I am a he and curl to the right. I only have one curl - except when I get tired and then it's more like a half-curl. Kinda like a cheese doodle. But furry.