My human said since I snarfed down a whole piece of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, I needed to do some extra walking over the weekend.
You need to walk off the pie before it turns into rolls, she said.
Don't ask me how pie turns to rolls. I like to walk so I didn't ask any questions. Well, I did ask if we could go somewhere new to walk off my pie. My human said that sounded like a good idea and loaded us into the car.
We ended up over at Crissy Field, which was a little disappointing because we go there all the time and I thought we were going to a new place.
ME: I thought we were going to walk in a new place? MY HUMAN: We are. ME: Uhm, we come here all the time. MY HUMAN: We come here, but we've never walked over there.
By "there" she meant the big orange bridge. My human said people come from all over the world to visit it. I never knew you could walk on the bridge, but when we got there lots of people were there walking on it.
My human told us Jack & Vegas' human's grandmother walked across the bridge before cars were allowed to use it. That was on the first day it opened back in 1937. She also said they closed the bridge off to cars to celebrate the bridge's 50th birthday. So many people walked across the bridge that day, it changed shape. They had to stop letting people on because engineers were worried the weight of the crowd might break the bridge.
I didn't like the sound of that. Especially since I hadn't walked off my pie yet. Dutch ate pie too. And so did my human. So that was 3 of us with pie weight. Who knew how many other people on the bridge ate pie. I started to worry that alllll the people on the bridge were there to walk off their pie.
My human laughed when I asked if extra pie weight could break the bridge. She told me to relax and enjoy the view. So I did.
Thanksgiving is another one of those special-days that's a little confusing to me.
Kinda like Memorial Day: you'd think it's about barbecues, parades and picnics because that's what happens on Memorial Day - but it isn't about those things at all. So I thought Thanksgiving was all about eating turkey and pie.... until the guy on NPR they said something about pilgrims and indians and being thankful. Or something like that. I don't know anything about pilgrims. Or indians. But I do know what it means to be thankful. So while I was waiting to eat pie, I made a list of things I'm thankful for: pie holidays my human (even though she leaves us alone sometimes and smells like other dogs) brother Dutch breakfast dinner cheetos popeye's nuggets baby cowpies bully sticks Jack & Vegas the crazy labradors The Man (Jack & Vegas' human) my spotted friends my blog friends my buddy Google naps sunshine the beach the park little squeaky tennis balls Animal Planet
There's more, but that's as far as I got before it was time to eat pie. I've been waiting to taste pumpkin pie ever since I saw that ginormous 1658lb beast at the pumpkin festival. And after almost two months of waiting, it only took me about 3 seconds and 2 bites to make the pie disappear.
I planned on finishing my Thankful List after the pie. But after the pie came turkey and after the turkey came stuffing and after the pie, turkey and stuffing I was kinda tired so I took a nap instead. My human says that happens sometimes on Thanksgiving.
A special-day of food AND naps?? Forget about pilgrims and indians - I'm pretty sure a pug must have invented Thanksgiving. I hope you all had a good one!
The next time you see this picture of me, it will be a collage.
Yup. Artist Sam Price is going to spend hours and hours cutting up recycled magazines to make a collage of ME. And I'm suuuuuuper excited about it.
My human said when Sam saw the pictures here on my blog he asked if he could use one to make a collage. Of course we said yes, please! and gave him a bunch of pictures to pick from.
Sam finally decided on this picture, which is pretty cool because I worked really hard to make it. The sun was shining in my eyes and it was almost impossible not to squint. And that plant I'm laying in? It was definitely not comfortable.
I'm pretty sure it'll take awhile for Sam to cut up enough squares to make me. But I SO can't wait to see what I look like as a collage!
I still haven't gotten to the bottom of the strange dog smells on my human. But now she's doing something else that's bugging me even more.
She used to be home with us pretty much all day. She was always busy staring at the computer, so it's not like she played with us or anything. But she was here. With us. And that's all that matters.
Lately she's been leaving us alone during the day for like HOURS at a time and it makes me really uncomfortable. Ok... it makes me sad. Brother Dutch says I should just chill and take a nap. But I think he's just saying that because it's what we normally do and he doesn't believe in change.
ME: Don't you want to wait for her to come home? DUTCH: We can wait in our sleep. ME: But.. uh.. DUTCH: You wait if you want. I'm going to nap.
So now whenever my human leaves, Dutch sleeps and I wait. I wait by the door. I wait by the window. I wait on the rug in the room where she used to stare at the computer all day. I wait because I'm afraid her gimpy brain might forget all about us. And I wait because I miss her when she's gone.
Does anyone else's human do this kind of thing?? If yes, do you wait like I do, or nap like Dutch? Is there anything we can do to make her come home faster?
So I guess my human promised brother Dutch that if he looked at the camera, we'd put his picture on The Daily Puglet again. So here's Dutch's great big head, looking at the camera for a change. I don't know why this is such a big deal, I mean, hellloo! I do that all the time.
But anyway...
It's kind of a good thing my human took this picture of Dutch's giant head because the highlight of my weekend wasn't exactly photo-worthy. At least that's what my human said. And since she's the one who does all the picture-taking, I guess I can't argue.
The highlight happened on Saturday when we hiked with the cows. There were lots of baby cows and if you've never tasted fresh baby-cow pies.... you just haven't lived. My human says it's because baby cows eat mother's milk, not grass. But whatever it is, they are TASTY!
Me and Dutch ate soooooo many baby cow pies that I got sick. All over our bed in the back of the car on the way home from hiking. My human said it smelled so bad, she thought one of us had exploded. We had to make an emergency stop to clean out the car and wash off Dutch's tail because I got sick on it by mistake and he was NOT happy about that.
I got sick four more times before we got home. There were plen-ty of chances to document my cow pie adventure but my human said no way. I don't understand why -- I just hope you can enjoy Dutch's giant head as much I enjoyed the tasty baby cow pies.
Brother Dutch thinks I'm overreacting about the strange dog smells on my human, so I asked my friend Google what I should do about it. Google said if you think your human is cheating, you can either ask them about it... or just follow them everywhere they go (technical term:stalking).
So yesterday I stalked my human. Every time she tried to leave the house I'd give her the look so she'd feel bad and take me with her. We went to the bank. The post office. A store with cameras. There weren't any dogs at any of those places. It was all pretty bor-ing.
I was about to give up on the stalking when my human grabbed her keys and said she'd see us in a few hours. A few hours? Hmmm. Sounded kinda suspicious. But when I made a move for the door, she said I had to stay home. I begged and begged and gave her the look until she finally caved.
Well. We ended up at a place called Blo Salon. There weren't any dogs there either, but I did meet a nice lady named Courtney. Courtney spent a looooong time doing weird things to my human's hair; when she was done, everyone said it looked really pretty. So I asked Courtney if she could do something with my fur. Y'know, to make me look cuter.
No problem. Hop up in the chair, she said.
I don't exactly know what Courtney did to us. But on the walk home, two strange men told my human her hair was really pretty and even more people than usual told me I was very cute. Go Courtney!
Two very loud humans woke me up early this morning. They were on the sidewalk in front of our house and one of them was talking about her vacation to some place called New York. There was rain. There was a marathon. She took pictures (even though it was raining) and the food was expensive but not that great.
Did I say it was really early? Like, still dark out early??Well, it was. And these people were LOUD. So I barked at them to keep it down. And brother Dutch barked because I barked. And all our barking woke up my human, who barked at both of us for barking.
Then we were all awake.
We normally don't get out of bed when it's still dark out, but since we were all awake my human thought it'd be cool to head to the beach. Go to the beach in the dark?? I asked. We can watch the sun come up, she said.
Uhm, OK.
I've seen the sun go down lots of times, but don't think I'd ever seen it come up before. If you've never seen a sunrise, I'm not sure it's worth getting out of bed in the dark just to see one. If you ask me, a sunrise looks a lot like a sunset except the sun is in a different place. Oh, and you don't have to wake up crazy early to see a sunset.
I haven't confronted my human about the strange dog smells yet. But I am working on ways to keep myself busy when she's off doing godknowswhat with godknows who.
OK, I love brother Dutch. I do. But sometimes he is just so.... boring. He doesn't like to play as much as I do. And he definitely doesn't play like a pug. Sometimes I really wish there was another pug in our house.
Well, yesterday my wish came true. Sort of. There's this new thing in my human's bedroom and it's got a pug living inside it. I don't think it's a real pug, more like one you'd see on TV. But the pug likes to play, so I don't really care if he's real or not.
I haven't seen any other TV animals show up on the new thing yet (except for a a dalmatian that looks a lot like Dutch). Nobears or sharks or anything. But I guess that's OK because I'm sure that would totally freak Dutch out. And I want to play with another pug, not a bear or a shark.
For the past few months I've caught the scents of other dogs lingering on her clothes. And I don't mean other dogs we know - like The Crazy Labrador Brothers or our spotted friends Boka & Miley. No. These are the smells of stranger dogs.
Yesterday she forgot to hang her new leather coat in the closet so I had a chance to do some serious sniffing around. Leather holds scents much better than the stuff shirts and pants are made of and I got a really good whiff of who she's been hanging out with:
Labrador, male, approx 14 yrs old Pug (!), male, not me, less than a year old Bulldog, female, 2 years old Great Dane, male, 5 years old Unidentified puppy, female
Can you believe that?? My human is a complete hussy! I also found traces of fur and slobber and Cheeto crumbs that did NOT come from my mouth. I told brother Dutch my suspicions, but he didn't think it was such a big deal. We see her pet other dogs at the park all the time, he said.
Wearing her new leather coat?? I don't think so. She doesn't wear that kinda thing when we go to the park. At least not when she goes to the park with us. I don't care what Dutch says, something is going on.
When I first started doing this blog thing, I kinda thought I'd just tell the world what's on my mind, share some cuteness, and that'd be it. I never knew I'd make so many friends. Or learn so many things from them.
Like the Gotcha Day thing. And Popeye's.
Thanks to my blog connections, when my human asked how I wanted to celebrate my Gotcha Day, I knew the answer right away: I want to eat some Popeye's fried chicken. Just like Stubby in Illinois does, I told her.
I don't think we have Popeye's here in California, she said.
We MUST, I insisted.
So we went on a Popeye's hunt and we found one. That was the first hurdle. The second came in the drive-thru when my human tried to place our order. She doesn't eat fried chicken (freak!) so she didn't want to get a whole bucket of it just for me and brother Dutch (booo!). So she asked the Popeye's person if there was a way to just get two pieces. Which caused a whole bunch of confusion.
Did we want a leg? Thigh? Wing? Breast? Yes. Yes. Yes. YES!
Which part has the fewest bones? my human asked. The Popeye's person wasn't really sure. Uh, I guess maybe the Nuggets? she said.
So we got Nuggets. I don't know what part of a chicken a Nugget comes from, but there were six of them. They were crispy outside, chicken-y inside, and super-yummmmy all over.
I was good and shared my Nuggets with Dutch. Even though it was my Gotcha Day. I really wanted to eat all six of them, but getting three and sharing the rest was OK.
I was kinda sad to see my last Nugget go, then Dutch reminded me that we haven't celebrated his Gotcha Day yet. He promised to ask for more Popeye's and says he'll share half of his Nuggets too.
In the past year, I've learned a lot about special days and how humans celebrate them. Santa. The Easter bunny. Firsts and Fourths. Birthday hats and lobster suits. Because there was so much leaking yesterday, my human decided to make today a special celebration day. She said today we're going to celebrate me.
Happy Puglet Day!?!
I thought it sounded a little, uh, grandiose for me to tell everyone I have a special day that isn't my birthday. But my human explained that I came to live with her and Dutch in the middle of November last year. It's not grandiose. It's called an anniversary, she said.
She also said Mushu's mom reminded her to do something she should do more often: celebrate those we love.
So to celebrate my first anniversary / Puglet Day, today's pictures are from my very first day with my new family. I was five months old. I loved brother Dutch right away, even though I think it kinda freaked him out a little (top picture). It didn't take him very long to learn to love me back. This is us a few weeks later:
I also loved the beach. I still remember the first time I played in sand and saw the ocean. I didn't want to leave so my human let us stay until the sun went down. This was my first beach sunset:
I think all dogs should have their own anniversary day. Especially because I'm pretty sure a special cookie or something will be part of the celebration. And if you don't know when your anniversary day should be, you can share today with me.
No adventure from me today. Just a few words in memory of Mushu the pug.
Mushu went to sleep unexpectedly over the weekend.I never met him in the fur because he lived far away. But I got to know his cute face during the No-Conest. And I know he was a recycled pug who got his name from his mom's favorite Chinese food (Mushu Pork) and was sometimes called Monkey Beast by his dad. I asked my human what you're supposed do when a friends goes to sleep. She got a little leaky and said something about flowers and a moment of silence. And hugs. Lots of hugs for the people who will miss their sleeping friend.
So lots of pug hugs to Mushu's humans, and a moment of silence for Mushu so he can sleep in peace.
Whenever kids see brother Dutch they always yell Fire Dog! Fire Dog!
This totally used to freak me out because I thought one of us was about to go up in flames or something. Then yesterday I met a fireman and he explained what the whole Fire Dog thing is all about.
So... waaay back before there were cars, dalmatians like Dutch used to run with these horse-drawn things called coaches.Rich people (technical term: aristocrats) liked how cool the spotted dogs looked running next to their coaches and used dalmatians to protect their horses and luggage from getting stolen (this makes me laugh because Dutch is a total wimp and couldn't guard his own shadow).
Anyway. Firetrucks also used to be pulled by horses and since dalmatians were so good at hanging out and running with horses, they ran with the firetrucks too. When the firemen were busy putting out a fire, dalmatians stayed with the firetrucks to keep the horses safe and calm.
Hearing all this made me a lit-tle bit jealous of the spotted dogs, with all their protecting and firefighting and stuff. People see Dutch and think he's a hero. They see me and think I'm an alien. Dutch is made to run 20 miles and protect valuables. I am made to, what, sit on laps and look cute?
Honestly, this got me feeling a little inferior. Especially when the firemen asked Dutch to pose for pictures on their truck. Hellllooo!I am the camera-dog. I am the ham. But when they were done taking Dutch's picture, they let me sit on the firetruck. And it was really cool and everything... but really not all that comfortable. And it's kinda hard to look cute when you're standing on metal, trying to act like you could protect something.
The firemen laughed at the idea of a Fire Pug and that's OK by me. Dutch can have the firetruck. I'm going to stick with what I was made to be good at: warm, comfy laps and looking cute.
I know I just wrote about Pug Sunday last week, but I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as too much pug. So when Lola from Lafayette invited me to her local PugSun I said yes yes yes.
Please?? Luckily my human is a total sucker for pugs, so on Sunday we drove over to a place called Walnut Creek to meet Lola and get puggy with her friends.
There was this one guy named Phantom who is THE coolest looking pug I've ever seen. And I've seen A LOT of pugs. Phantom came from a family of black and fawn pugs and I guess couldn't decide which color he wanted to be, so he picked both. How cool is that!?!
And there was a little pug-on-wheels named Daisy who cruised around like a race car driver. She was fast. I've met a few dogs-on-wheels, but Daisy's the only one I know with front-wheel drive.
My human forgot to ask how Daisy got her wheels. All I know is they don't slow her down one bit (they might even make her faster). And when Daisy's wheels come off, her body is perfectly designed for sitting up and looking cute. She must get SOOOO many treats.
Whenever we ride in the car, my human makes us listen to NPR. Sometimes it's reeeeally boring, but sometimes I learn things about the world and it's OK. On the way to Pug Sunday yesterday (more on that tomorrow), the people on the radio were talking about some place called Berlin and a wall that fell down or something. I wasn't really interested until my human said she was there, in Berlin, right after the wall fell over. Said she still has a piece of it.
Huh? When did she go to this Berlin place - and why didn't I get to go too??
When I grilled her about about it, she just laughed. It was 20 years ago, Pug. You weren't even born yet. Your mother's mother's mother wasn't even born yet.
Oh.
This is one thing about my human I always forget and will never get used to: she had a life BEFORE me. She's been places and and done things and seen stuff that I know *nothing* about. And this kinda freaks me out a little because I like to be as close to her as possible at all times. She says I'm sticky like velcro because once velcro sticks, it doesn't let go.
I told my human I want to know every single thing that happened before me, starting with Berlin. She laughed and said that's a whole lot of stuff. But she did tell me about the Berlin place, the giant wall that used to split it in half, and how different the two halves were when she visited them.
It doesn't sound like I missed much (especially in East Berlin) but I still wanted to know what it would have been like to be there. So I found a wall and tried to imagine it... which didn't really work. So from now on I'm going to stick super-close to my human and never miss anything she does ever again.
I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but what's up with the sun these days?? We usually walk in the dark only once (right before bed) but for the past week the sun's been broken and we've had to go on TWO dark walks a day.
This wouldn't be so bad, except dark walks mean leashes. Even in the park. My human says she can't trust us if she can't see us. Which really means that when it's dark, see can't see us wandering off in search of leftovers. Or stop us from eating what we find.
Yesterday me & brother Dutch complained about the sun being broken and having to be on leashes so much. So my human came up with the bright idea to put these glow-thingys around our necks. For "increased visibility", she said (translation: so I can see you eating trash from across a dark park).
My human is pretty sneaky - we each got different colors so she'd know which one of us to yell at. I got a pink&orange glowy, Dutch's was blue&green. The broken sun got in the way of picture taking too, so my human had to take today's photo in the dark.
You'll have to imagine me looking cute, because today I'm just a pink and orange swirl :(
I heard on the radio yesterday that a town in Texas changed its name to get free satellite TV. People who used to live in Clark, Texas now live in Dish, Texas and will be watching TV for free for the next 10 years.
This got me thinking. If I could give San Francisco a new name and get a lifetime of free stuff, what name would I give it? It definitely wouldn't be Dish. I like watching Animal Planet, but not that much.
Brother Dutch didn't even have to think about it -- said he'd change San Francisco, CA to Squirrel, CA so he could have lots of squirrels to chase. My human said maybe Sunshine, CA or Naps, CA. I told her sun and naps are already free so she added Swedish Fish (the mini kind), CA to the list.
I had a harder time deciding. Food, CA? Bully Stick, CA? Cow Hoof, CA? There are so many things I like, picking just ONE to get free for life would be really rally hard.
And then... I ate my first Cheeto.
It was the puffed, natural kind of Cheeto. My human bought them to help Dutch get over his camera phobia. She said they're stinky and big enough for him too see from far away. She also said they're full of air and won't make me get fat. Whatever. Cheetos taste GOOD! SO good, that Dutch even looked at a camera to get one (as you can see in today's picture).
I hope the people of San Francisco would be OK with living in Cheetos, CA because that's totally what I'd change the name to. What would you name your town to for a lifetime of free stuff?
I don't know who invented Pug Sunday, but whoever did is a total genius.
If you don't have Pug Sundays in your neighborhood and have no idea what makes the idea so genius, imagine this... once a month a whole flock of pugs and their people gather to get puggy. There's lots of running and snorting and sumo-wrestling (that's what my human says pugs look like when we play). Some unknowing human always brings food and gets mobbed by hungry pugslooking for free snacks. Everyone goes home tired and happy. Good times!
There are always lots of cool pugs at Pug Sunday and this weekend I got to hang out with two I met here on the blog. One was Ody, who I've met once before but couldn't play with because my foot was gimpy. This time I was gimp-free so we ran and played like crazy until we were the only pugs left in the park. The other was Frank the pug, my younger twin and newest new friend. We look SO much alike in real life, my human kept getting us mixed up. She had to look at our collars to keep track of me. Can you tell us apart? While we were busy playing, Frank's dad got everyone together so my human could take a group pug picture. She's been wanting to do this for ages, but isn't good at being loud or corralling people. Frank's dad is really good at both, so here we all are:
I think brother Dutch felt kinda left out of the No-Contest, so today I'm going to write about him instead of talking about Pug Sunday (more on that tomorrow).
Lots of people ask my human why there's a Daily Puglet, but not a Daily Dutch. Am I her favorite? Am I more interesting? More cute? Well, yeah... but that's not why Dutch doesn't have a blog.
The problem is that Dutch hates cameras. More like he's afraid of cameras. Unlike me, who gets all excited when the camera comes out, Dutch will do everything he can to avoid having his picture taken.
See today's photo? Case in point. My human had to ambush Dutch when he was too busy rolling around in the grass to notice her. She was able to get one good frame (fancy talk for picture) before he saw the camera... and died.
Well, not really died. He was just playing dead so my human would stop shooting him (more fancy talk; shooting just means taking pictures). See those five little pictures underneath the big one? My human took those while she was waiting for Dutch to come back to life.
Dutch didn't move for almost 2 minutes. At first my human thought it was kinda funny. So she kept shooting. When he didn't get up, she thought something might be wrong and stopped. And as soon as she put the camera down, Dutch went back to rolling around in the grass. Happy as a pig in poop.
Looking at pictures of a dog playing dead would get pret-ty boring after awhile. and that's why there's a Daily Puglet - but no Daily Dutch.
Before I announce the winners of The No-Contest Contest, I want to thank everyone for sending in their cuteness. Watching the gallery fill up with faces was super exciting. I'm so glad I quit that other contest so we could all have fun with this one!
Because we are ALL super-cute, no one was judged in The No-Contest. I picked the winners at random by popping balls with names written on them. I am SOOOO glad I only had to pop balls to find the winners. No way I could ever pick favorites from a gallery so full of cuteness.
My human used a special camera to film me picking the winners. She's kinda sucky at special cameras, but here I am popping balls:
And now, the No-Contest Contest moment you've all been waiting for.....
The Grand Prize Winner: Stella (Morro Bay, CA) Congratulations Stella on winning a brand new Henrietta rubber chicken!!
Finalists: Macs (Eden Prairie, MN) Peyton (Villa Grove, IL) Sasha the puppy (Lake Charles, LA)
My human said since I snarfed down a whole piece of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, I needed to do some extra walking over the weekend. 
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