GOODBYE 2010

I know I shouldn't be sad to see 2010 end. But it's been such a superawesome year, I just don't want it to be over. I've made so many amazing friends (uh, that's you) and done some pretty cool stuff.

From falling in love, to being famous, to meeting lots of new friends (including my long distance bromance Stubby), turning 2, and getting my first taste of bacon love - 2010 has been full of adventure. And I'm soooo glad you've been here with me like every single day, to share it.

So goodbye 2010. You were good. And I will miss you. But I think 2011 is totally going to kick your butt!

Happy almost New year everybody!

BEST. PRESENT. EVER.

Yeah, I know. It's almost next year and I'm still talking about Christmas. And you're probably thinking 'Ok Pug, enough with freaking Christmas already'. But trust me, you totally want to hear about this present.

Because this present is the gift of never-ending cookies. And it's a gift I'm going to share with all my friends (that's you!) so everyone can enjoy the Best Present Ever too.


I'm talking about The Organic Dog Biscuit Cookbook. Yup. A bit fat book of cookie-making awesomeness, written by the geniuses at the Bubba Rose Biscuit Company. I should probably mention that this present requires the use of working thumbs and was technically given to my human, but even she got kinda excited about it. Even though it's a recipe book and we all know how she feels about ovens and recipes and stuff.

Anyway. I was so excited about a life full of cookies from the ODBC that I wrote to the Bubba people and asked them if I could share some of the recipes with you (something about a copyright? Not sure. Google made me do it). The Bubba people were totally nice and said it's ok for me to share (thanks Bubba people!). I even convinced my human that we should test the recipes out before I share them. Y'know, for quality control purposes.

How awesome is that??

Pretty awesome, I think. My human has been totally MIA this week so we haven't tested any of the recipes yet. But I don't want to wait around for her thumbs to get home, so I picked out a recipe from a list of special treats for each month on the calendar. Since December is practically over (and January sounded super yummy), here's a recipe to help you celebrate the new year.

Oh yeah. First, a few things about the ODBC recipes. They are all corn, soy and wheat free (attn: Noodle and other allergics!!). I'm not technically allergic to corn, but it kinda makes me fart, so my human was happy to see the words 'corn free'.

Some of the ingredients they use might sound a little funky (what's an oat flour?) but my human said she's seen all of them in our local grocery store. If your human can't find something, the ODBC says dog biscuits aren't rocket science so it's ok to make substitutions and play around with different ingredients. I say you should add bacon whenever possible, but that's totally up to you and your human.

{January}
From Bubba Rose Bakery's Organic Dog Biscuit Cookbook

For the dough:

1 cup oat flour
1 1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup peanut butter (unsalted)
1 TBS honey
1 egg
2/3 cup water

For the topping:

8 oz. CAROB chips (check label for soy lecithin if allergic to soy!) 8 oz. WHITE chocolate chips (white chocolate is dog safe)

Preheat oven to 350. Combine all dough ingredients together and mic until a dough forms. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to 1/4" thickness. Use a round cookies cutter or the rim of an upside down grass to cut our 2" circles of dough. Reform and reroll the dough to get as many circles from it as possible. Place the circles on an ungreased cookies sheet (they can be rather close together as they don't grow much while cooking).

Bake 20-25 minutes. Transfer and let cook completely on a wire rack.

When the cookies are cooling, prepare the topping. To do so, heat the white chocolate ships over low heat in a double boiler or microwave until melted. Dip half of each cookie into the melted white chocolate and place back on a wire rack to cool. Once all cookies are cooled to the touch, heat the carob chips in a double boiler or in the microwave until melted. Dip the other half of each cookie into the melted carob and place back on a wire rack to cool.

{Note: the San Antonio Pugs' patented drizzle technique would totally work for these cookies. Just put the melted stuff in plastic bags, cut a small hole in the corner of the bag and squeeze}

Store the cookies in a loosely covered container at room temperature or in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

{or immediately eat as many as possible before your human catches you}

Enjoy!

PS: I don't know if it's possible to be more afraid of baking than my human, but if yours just won't bake you can always order Bubba Rose cookies from their website or find them in a store near you.

BAD A$$ IS BACK!

If you've known me for awhile, you might know that I used to wear a very cool harness with skulls and crossbones on it. A friend of my human's gave it to me after I "defied death" during my boy-part-removal induced heart attack.

Even though I have one of those Puppia things everyone thinks are so cute, skull and crossbones are just so... well... bad ass. Like me. I was 6 months old when I got the skull harness and wore it, like, pretty much every day for a year and a half. It became like a part of my soul or something. And then my human lost it.

Yeah. Lost it.

No idea how you lose a harness - especially when your dog wears it every freaking day. But Miss Gimpy Brain loses pretty much everything and I guess everything includes my favorite harness. And this wouldn't have been such a big deal, except the person who got it for me couldn't remember where they got it. Even Google didn't know where to find a new one, and Google knows everything.

So for months now, I've been wearing either the Puppia thing (that I hate because it goes over my head) or just a collar (that my human hates because it chokes me whenever I'm on a leash and decide to go poodle on someone). But not any more. Because the Santa dude left a brand spankin' new bad ass harness in my sock. Woo! Hoo!

Don't ask me how Santa knows more than Google, but apparently Google doesn't know everything. Might explain why Google couldn't tell me how to get my thumbs to work. Right now I'm trying to learn how to put my own harness on, but so far it hasn't been any easier than putting on a sweater :(

NOT VERY MERRY

It sounds like everyone ended up having an awesome Christmas. Except maybe Ollie in Canada (who got a snowsuit but no food) and Frodo, Molly and Cleo in Nj who got like a million feet of snow. Well. For everyone out there who didn't exactly get what they wanted under the tree or in their giant sock, this is for you.

Because even though I got loads of cool stuff in my sock (and one of the best presents ever) I also got shampoo. And you know what shampoo means. Uh huh. Baths.

Thanks Santa dude.

It's been really rainy lately, which means it's been really muddy. Really muddy means really dirty, and really dirty means... yup. Baths. I guess that's why the Santa dude put the shampoo in my sock. He must have gotten me confused with some other pug who likes baths, because I really don't mind being dirty.

Hear that Santa? Really. I don't like baths.

But I guess my human does, because she was all excited to try out my new shampoo. I've been kinda itchy, so she used the Oatmeal + Aloe on me, even though I thought the 'Mango Tango' flavor sounded much more fun (Dutch got the Mango). My human thinks the Oatmeal + Aloe smells better than the Mango, so I guess I'm glad I itch. The Earthbath stuff is totally natural, so at least Santa got that part right.

Anyway. To be totally honest I don't really mind baths. I just pretend I do so my human will feed me cookies in the bath tub (totally works, try it). And I guess if I'm going to have to be clean, I might was well be un-itchy, nice to the planet and smell good when it's over.

IT WORKED!

I hope everyone had the awesomest Christmas ever. I know I did. The weather has been really crazy, so we didn't get to visit the snow like we did last year (or visit the drive thru to get Nuggets). But that didn't matter because our giant empty socks totally got stuffed.

Even though I did exactly what everyone told me to do (hang the socks, leave out food, etc.), I was kinda surprised when I woke up Christmas morning and my sock was full. I have no idea how the Santa dude got in and out without me or Dutch hearing him, but it's probably a good thing he didn't wake us up in the middle of the night. We might have accidentally attacked him and who knows what would have happened to our socks then.

Totally stuffed!

Here's what the Santa dude stuffed in my sock:

- Omegas!
- salmon sticks
- Dingo candy cane
- a big fat carrot
- mini squeaky tennis balls
- a Stella & Chewy's patty (aka, puglet crack - I'll do a whole post on them later)
- shampoo (huh???)

Dutch got pretty much the same stuff, except he got a bag of Primal lamb hearts instead of Omegas. We each got a present too, but I'll save that for later this week (suuuuperexcited about my present!!).

What was in your giant empty sock on Christmas morning? Did the Santa dude leave any presents under your tree??

24/24

December 24. The day before Christmas. It's finally almost time.

In just 24 hours, all the giant empty socks hanging from chimneys will be stuffed... presents will be under the tree, ready to be opened... and I'll finally get to take these stupid deer ears off.

If you missed the rules for how to get your giant sock stuffed, here's a recap:

* be good all year long
* leave carrots for the reindeer
* leave cookies for the Santa dude (yeah, I know)
* cross your paws, go to sleep and wait until Christmas morning

I've been told Santa will leave some of the cookies behind, so don't freak out too much about the cookie thing. But just in case, I wouldn't leave all your cookies out for Santa. Or give him your best cookies. I'm just saying...

Ho?

Anyway. Me, Dutch + my human hope everyone has the best Christmas ever. Full of love, toys, cookies and, uh... more cookies!!

EAR WEIGHT?

Here's another reason to hope Christmas comes soon: deer ear weight. Yeah. As if the humiliation of wearing deer ears in public isn't enough, the stupid things also make me fat.

Ok, maybe not fat. But fatter than I am without them. And fatter than I was a few weeks ago. And definitely fatter than 25lbs. Y'know, that magic number that says it's ok to buy me treats. Yeah. Almost half a pound fatter than that.

Luckily, my human said we can ignore today's weigh in. 1) because of the ears 2) because I was on a new scale and 3) because it's almost Christmas. Sooooo happy about all this. It would completely suck if I just wore deer ears for the entire month of December and got nothing to eat for it on Christmas morning.

So even though I'm over the weight limit for new snacks, my stocking will be full in less than 36 hours. Woo. Hoo. It is just me, or is everyone else here counting down the minutes to stocking time??

NO GOATS

All the rain we've been having here lately has made it pretty hard to have adventures. Because even when the rain stops falling from the sky, most of the places we hike get sooo crazy muddy, it's kinda hard to walk.

Me and Dutch have been driving my human a little nuts with all our extra energy, so she tried to fix the problem by finding us a new, not-so-muddy place to hike. Google helped her find a really cool place on the cow side of the grey bridge called Pt Pinole.

I love new places and was glad the mud situation gave us an excuse to check it out. That is until we got there and I saw the sign about the electric fence. The HIGH VOLTAGE electric fence.

The goats are where??

Huh?? I was kinda freaked out about the fence until my human explained it's not there to zap me - it's there to contain the goats. Goats? Yes, goats. They were in the park to eat weeds. Pretty cool, huh?

I'd never met a goat before and thought they might be fun to chase. Uhm, I mean play with. And I figured if it was safe for goats, then it was probably safe for deer ears. I've been kinda paranoid about getting accidentally shot and reaaally hate wearing that stupid santa hat, so this was a huge relief. Huge.

So when Dutch was off chasing his invisible squirrels, I hunted for goats. Since I'd never seen a goat, I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for but figured I'd know a goat when I saw it.

Well. I was wrong. I got all excited when I saw this guy standing underneath the tree. Especially since he was tied to the tree, making it much easier to win a game of chase-the-goat.

Bad idea. Because it turns out the goat was really a horse and humans don't think it's cool for dogs to chase horses. Especially horses who are tied to trees. My human yelled at me, the people who belonged to the horse yelled at me. Even the horse yelled at me. The only one who didn't yell at me was Dutch, and that's only because he's afraid of everything and was hiding behind a tree.

I never did find the goats. But I didn't find the high voltage electric fence or get shot either, so I guess I should be happy.

BAAAAAAACON!

My human felt kinda bad about letting me watch that Sarah lady shoot a reindeer on TV, so she decided not to wait until Christmas eve to make the Bacon cookies. I'm still a little afraid of accidentally getting shot, so I traded the stupid deer ears in for an even stupider Santa hat.

Soooo not a fan of the Santa hat.

In case you missed it, when I was talking about Pug Bars the other day Murphy's mom (hi Mary, I love you!) left a recipe for her special Bacon cookies in the comments. When I saw it had bacon bits *and* bacon grease in it, I begged my human to make me the cookies for Christmas.

Of course she totally said no. No to using the oven. No to following a recipe. And a great big fat NO to the bacon grease (especially the bacon grease). But then my human made the cookies from the make-your-own kit and it wasn't so bad. She didn't burn the house down and the cookies came out supertasty. So she agreed to try making cookies from a real, live recipe. And thanks to Mary & Murphy, the recipe she agreed to make has bacon in it.

I don't know what it's like at your house, but bacon is not a food group around here. It's kinda sad, but I ended up in a mostly-vegetable home. Which means I've eaten lots of carrots, but never a bacon. I don't exactly know what a bacon is, but just saying the word tastes good. Seriously. Say it: baaaaaaaa-con. Hmmm.

BAAAAACON!

My human was kinda freaked out by the bacon. The raw bacon. The cooking bacon. The grease of the bacon. The crackle and pop of smokin' hot bacon. She totally didn't feel the bacon love. But I totally did.

When the bacon was done cooking, it went in the bowl with a bunch of other stuff (like carob chips!). I wasn't allowed to help this time because last time I accidentally ate some stuff, so my human used her thumbs to make it all turn to cookies. She even made some tiny little cookies so we cook eat a whole bunch of them at once.

Best of all, the recipe made enough for two batches so we now have bacon cookies in the freezer, just waiting to be made. I haven't eaten this batch of cookies yet, but I already can't wait for the next batch.

Here's Mary's not-so-secret cookie recipe so you can get your human to make them for you too. If my human can do it, yours totally can so don't let them say no. I'm pretty sure they'd work for kitties too!

Murphy's K-9 Biscuits
{aka Bacon Cookies}

3 cups flour (any combo white, wheat, rye, cornmeal, or oatmeal)
(My human uses 1 1/2 white flour, 1 1/2 cornmeal)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup (congealed, solid) bacon grease!! or
(very dull tasting) Crisco
1 egg
1/2 cup liquid (beef or chicken broth, low sodium; thin gravy, milk.)
Real Bacon bacon bits, a handful or two, if you want. I certainly want, so does Murph.

Combine the flours and garlic powder. And maybe some bacon bits. Or carob chips, hmm, that might be cool. Add the BACON GREASE!! (or Crisco. Whatever.) Blend until crumbly. Add egg and liquid and mix. Form dough into balls and knead a bit. Add small drops of water if dough is not sticking together to form a ball. May be stored in frig one week at this point, or frozen up to 6 months.

Roll out 1/4 inch to 3/8 inch thick and cut into shapes with cookie cutter. My human uses a teeny tiny heart shaped cutter and rolls the dough thin to make tiny cookies and more of them. (She says, always leave 'em wanting more. I think she means me and Murph wanting more bacon cookies.) Bake at 350 degrees 20 to 30 minutes, until edges start to look golden brown. How long it takes to cook depends on how thin you roll the dough, and how big the cookies are, so watch the first batch carefully so you know how long to bake them. Cool on wire rack nor newspapers on countertop, out of reach of drooling pooches.

Big cookies: 2 dozen.
Small cookies: maybe as many as 5 or 6 dozen. It just depends on how thin the dough, and how big the cookie cutter.

DID SARAH KILL CHRISTMAS?

It was a pretty lame weekend here at Casa de Puglet. It rained like 24/7 and unless you count peeing in the pouring rain an adventure, we didn't really have any. My human brought home some BACON to make grease to make cookies with, but she hasn't made the bacon (or the grease or the cookies) yet so no excitement there. Apparently, we have to wait until Christmas eve so I can leave some cookies out for the Santa dude.

Sigh.

I am so ready for this Christmas stuff be over. And not just because I want cookies. Or presents. No. Last night I watched some superscary thing on TV that totally gave me nightmares about my stupid deer ears. This lady named Sarah who lives in Alaska (I think she was almost president or something) shot this thing called a caribou that had deer ears JUST LIKE MINE. Yeah. She shot it, cut it into pieces and put the pieces in her freezer.

DEER EARS!!!

My human says it's called hunting and some people do it instead of buying meat at the store. But what if someone sees my deer ears, thinks I'm one of those caribou things, and hunts me by mistake?? I don't want to end up in someone's freezer for Christmas.

And Google says caribou is just a fancy name for reindeer. What if that's one of Santa's reindeer in pieces, in the Sarah lady's freezer? Will my stocking still get stuffed if Santa doesn't have all his deer? Will Christmas still come if Santa is missing a reindeer??

Just when the human holiday stuff was starting to make sense, this Sarah lady comes along and confuses everything. Does anyone know anything about this hunting thing? Do you think Christmas will be canceled because of it??

FFF: ginkos

So, my human has been waiting all year for some magic tree thing to happen. It has nothing to do with the weird leafless Christmas trees either. No. She's been waiting for leaves to die and fall off trees. Yeah. I know. Creepy, right?

But I guess my human grew up in a place where leaves die every year and I guess she misses dead leaves. Or something like that. Since most trees around here don't shed their leaves, my human was superexcited last year when she found the Ginko trees. Because the leaves of the Ginko trees die and fall off.

I think part of the reason she gets so excited about leaf death is because when leaves die (before they turn all brown and gross), they turn pretty colors. The Ginko tree leaves turn a pretty cool bright yellow. And I guess Ginko-yellow makes for cool pictures.

I'm really not sure how I ended up in a ginko tree when we were supposed to be taking pictures of dead leaves, but...

Anyway. She's been stalking Ginko leaves for like months and they've finally started to die. I've never seen someone get so excited about dead things. Seriously.

We even took a special trip to a neighborhood full of Ginkos so she could take these (and a whole bunch of other) pictures. Pictures mean cookies and I like cookies, so now I'm a big fan of the Ginkos too.

Do you have ginko trees where you live? Are their leaves dead yet??

MAKE YOUR OWN COOKIES!

I guess my human felt guilty for never home-making me anything, because yesterday she went to the Bullseye store and came home with a make-your-own-cookie kit.

If your human is the kind of human who believes in cooking, you might not need a Christmas cookie kit. But mine totally does. Because if you haven't been paying attention, the whole homemade thing is a pretty huge deal around here because my human doesn't cook things very much. And by not very much, I mean never.

So making cookies in the oven was kinda... magical. And fun. We dumped the cookie stuff in a bowl, added water, then my human used her thumbs and a special thingy to make bone shapes. I tried to help by making bite marks in the cookies but this just got me in trouble.

My human put carob chips on top of each cookie to make them extrasuper tasty (thanks SA Pugs for the carob idea! My human has no idea how to drizzle, so we just got the chips) then the shapes went in the oven and came out cookies. I have no idea why we don't use the oven more often.


To be honest, the Christmas cookies didn't taste as good as the Pug Bars. They kinda tasted like a piece of pizza crust I found on the sidewalk once - but making them was pretty fun. At least until I got in trouble.

Google says there are tons of dog cookie recipes out there, if you think your human can handle a recipe. Or, if you have a human like mine, you can just do what my human did and buy the kit at Target. They make a kitty version too :)

PUG BARS

I don't know about you, but I'm totally ready for Christmas to get here. When all those rules about stockings made my head hurt, I looked into being Jewish instead, but Google said there's more to being Jewish than 8 days of presents. So I guess I'll stick with being Christmas. Which means I'm also stuck with the stupid deer ears and a big giant *empty* sock hanging by the chimney for another 10 whole days.

I'm also stuck with a human who doesn't believe in cooking. Which means I won't be getting any homemade snacks any time soon, and that makes me sad.

I can't stop thinking about the homemade snacks that were on the food table at Pugtacular. How good they smelled... how tasty they tasted... how many of them I didn't get to eat...

Sigh.

If you're lucky enough to have a human who believes in cooking, you just might get some home made snacks. Like Pug Bars. They're the things on the food table that spoke louder than my human. And they are magic.

I'm not sure what human is responsible for inventing the magic Pug Bar, or who was nice enough to bring them to the Pugtacular. But thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Secret Recipe

My human stole the secret recipe that was posted on the food table so everyone here can enjoy the magic of Pug Bars. Even if I can't.

PUGTACULAR!

On your mark. Get set. Go?

I was really bummed a few weeks ago when Pug Sunday got rained out, so I was superexcited to get a second chance at fun at the 2010 Pugtacular. Oh, and it was fun.

There was food. And games. And food. And friends. Did I mention there was food?? Lots of food. Tasty food.

FOOD AND GAMES
To make things extra fun, the pugtacular had games. Kinda like a the Olympics, but with pugs. There was a contest for best tail, best trick, best lap pug. And best of all - a race. I didn't win any of the contests, but people always say I'm really fast, so everyone totally thought I'd win the race. But I had other ideas.

Bellatrix's race (she followed the rules and got a ribbon for 2nd place)

If you've never seen a pug race, it's supposed to go something like this: pugs line up on one side of a pen and run really fast to their humans on the other side. The first pug to reach their human wins. So Bellatrix's dad held onto me until they said GO!... and then I went... straight out of the pen and over to the food table.

I couldn't help it. Even though I knew the rules, and could hear my human calling "Pug! Pug! Pug!" from the finish line, the food was calling me too. And it was louder. So I lost the race. As in never crossed the finish line. And I didn't even get to eat the food because my human knew *exactly* where to find me.

Sigh.

FRIENDS

So I didn't win anything. Or get to eat as much as I wanted. But I did get to see a bunch of old friends. I even made some new ones. Noodle (who has the human with the talented knitting thumbs) came up from Monterrey, which was extra amazing because he brought his grandmother and she likes to hand out snacks.

Massimo the sock-eater was there too, dressed in a holiday outfit that made me glad I just have to wear deer ears (he's a pretty chill guy and didn't seem to mind though).

Massimo's holiday humiliation outfit.

Princess Daisy-on-wheels was too busy cruising around to play with me, and Bellatrix + Spencer were kinda busy with each other, but I got in some serious sumo time with Phantom. He kinda reminds me of Frank, but bigger and with an even cuter face. Yeah, I know. Cuter than Frank.

Sigh.

BEST OF!

Do I look sad, or what?

I totally want to thank everyone who voted to put my human's stupid Frolic stuff on the "Best Of" ballot. The good news is, Frolic didn't make it on the list (don't tell my human I said that - I'm pretending to be sad.). The even better news is that I did!

WOO! WOO!

Uh huh. You all put me on the ballot. I mean, I didn't even know there was a place for me on there!

If Frolic did get on the ballot, my human was going to put links to all the other dog shooter's websites so you could vote for whoever you like the best (and not just who I ask you to vote for). So if you want to keep voting (or just want to look at some cool pictures of dogs that aren't me) here's who made it to the final round:

Jesse Freidin, jessefreidin.com
Kendra Luck, dogumentarian.com
Kira Stackhouse, nuenapets.com
Lori Cheung, thepetphotographer.com

OH! And if you want to keep voting for me, you can do that too. You can vote all the way until February 6 by going here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BoBA2011ballot

PS: If you voted for the weather, it made it on there too.

* * *

As much as I totally hate when my human takes pictures of stranger dogs, you might want to check out the ridiculous pug cuteness on today's Daily Frolic. His name is Sinbad, he's a puppy, and he's looking for a perfect home.

FFF: the sweater test

So, this whole maybe-thumb discovery got me really curious: can my maybe-thumbs be useful? Or opposable or whatever? I mean, maybe my thumb-nubs just sit there and do nothing because I've never tried to do anything with them.

Possible, right?

So I asked my human to give my maybe-thumbs a test. Y'know, give them something to do and see what happens. Well. Here's what happened when I tried to put my favorite sweater on. With my stupid maybe-thumbs...

Hellloooo, who turned out the lights?

Uhm, kinda stuck.

Stilllllllll stuck.

Totally stuck. Can someone with real thumbs please help me?

Don't get too excited by this last picture. I never did get the sweater over my own head. My human and her super-human thumbs totally had to do it for me. I'm kinda bummed about this, but wonder if maybe that Nicholas dude could bring me some REAL thumbs for Christmas??

THUMBS?

All the talk about stocking rules yesterday kinda made my head hurt, so today I'm taking a break from Christmas. Don't worry though, even though you can't see my head - I'm still wearing the stupid deer ears.

Anyway. For some reason my human has been really into my feet lately. I'm not a huge fan of people messing with my toes, so lucky for her she's just taking pictures of them. I didn't understand why anyone would want to see pictures of my feet, so I looked at the pictures to see what the big deal is. And the big deal is thumbs.

Thumbs!

Seriously. I have thumbs. At least I think I do. You can see what I mean in today's picture, right there on my front feet: four toes and one, uhm, thumb? Dutch has them too. Just. Like. My human's hand.

No idea how I didn't notice the maybe-thumbs until now. I mean, do you know how huge this is?? Google says thumbs are what make humans human. Or at least let them type and do lots of other stuff I can't do without my human's help.

Does anyone else here have the maybe-thumbs? More important: if you have them, do you know how to use them??

GIANT EMPTY SOCK

Uhm, I have a Christmas question. I asked my human to get me one of those stocking things a few of you mentioned. Y'know, the thing that get stuffed with, uh, stuff? So she took us shopping to get stockings.

I'd never seen a stocking before and was kinda don't get it. I mean, the thing just looks like a giant sock. My sock has a deer on it and Dutch picked out a pink one (of course). Cool enough, I guess. But they're just.... socks. They're not stuffed with anything, are too big too wear on your feet (even for my human and her feet are HUGE), and we each only got one of them anyway.

So confusing.

I asked Google about it and apparently you're supposed to hang them by the chimney with care and hope for some dude name Nicholas to come. Uhhhh, ok. So once Google explained what a chimney is and I figured out it's where my human keeps the plants, I hung my sock there next to Dutch's. And waited.

And waited some more. I waited all night long for the sock-stuffing dude to come and the dude never came. Dutch gave up and went to sleep with my human, so I spent the whole night *alone* in front of the chimney and my sock is still empty.

Yeah.

So here's my question (I mean questions): how long do I have to wait for my sock or stocking or whatever to get stuffed and what's up with this Nicholas guy??