DETECTO

I was so excited to tell you about the gummies that I totally forgot to tell you about what else happened the day we went shopping for them.

Ok. So, right across from the World Market place was a new dog store called Unleashed. I thought it'd be a good idea to go in and check it out; my human thought it'd be a good idea to weigh me in before letting me "go nuts" on a bunch of eatables.

Whatever.

I wasn't too worried about passing the 25lb test. We'd just gone for a hike so I was feeling pretty skinny. I also knew that if the scale said I was too fat, I could probably convince my human it was wrong. Or at least not as right as the scale we usually use. If nothing else, I knew someone behind the counter would give me a bunch of snacks. Tubey or not, the counter-people always give you snacks.

So I hopped up on the scale (aka Detecto) and tried to be skinny. And I came pretty close. Close enough to hear my human say the magic words: OK. You can get some cookies.

Woo hoo! I was extra-super glad my human gave the thumbs up because there was a cookie dispenser right next to the scale and it really would have sucked if Dectecto said I was too fat to eat any of them.

And get this, they even had a bin of Ginger Bears cookies! Of course my human picked those out for me (even though I really wanted the cookies that looked like pink oreos). But Princess you-know-who got pink oreos and I got a bunch of freaking Ginger Bears.

But I guess any cookie is a good cookie, right? Even if it is natural and mini and shaped like a short, fat bear.

DICE!

Dice the spotted puppy.

Today was tooth #29's big day at the dentist, so I was kinda worried my human would go all AWOL on us and you wouldn't have any Daily Puglet to read. Luckily Miss Gimpy planned ahead (sort of) so today you get to find out how Dice the spotted puppy is doing in his awesome new home.

Big thanks to his human Elinor for giving us the scoop + very cute pictures :)

* * *

Dice just had his first real family vacation at Donner Lake, got home yesterday. We hiked in snow (!) at over 7,000 feet elevation, swam in the frigid Donner lake, rode the gondolas at NorthStar and hiked to a lake (both dogs completely crazy with all the chipmunks there.), and rode around in the boat at Donner. Dice is such a champ, nothing faces him very much, although the boat rides are not his favorite, he jumps in happily each time :)

He is in extremely good shape, strong and agile, and handles himself beautifully in all terrains. I worry about him at such an young age and literally crate him sometimes to make him rest and settle down.

Dice the handsome.

He is finally starting to fill out a little bit - people comment all the time on his handsomeness. "And SO well behaved" they'll say, as he sits there regally accepting petting and cookies. Little do they know that he's just having a good moment, contemplating which moving object to pounce on next or which thing to possibly eat and/or destroy :)

Dice and his spotted 'sister' Flicka in their daytime beds. Notice how he has completely taken over the larger bed at only 6 months of age ;)

Little Flicka + Big Dice

Tonight we just completed our last dog class, an intermediate level class during which we occasionally have some bright moments. I will retake it again in September, working on longer attention span. He is so incredibly willing to offer behaviors. I'm very sloppy with my handling and a real beginner, so he often throws in all sorts of various moves in hopes of getting it right when I give an unclear command - making him look really funny and spastic as he will Spin Around, Crawl, Roll Over, Salute or walk backwards if I ask for something he's not quite sure of.

This fall we'll try a couple of novice Rally matches in the area just for fun and I'd also like to give the CGC test a try - we're really not ready for that one at all I think but there is one on August 13th in Sacramento. Just something fun for us to do together, and for me to feel that I'm at least one step ahead of him.

We're so lucky to have him.

Dice's light rail adventure.

He is ALL Dalmatian, spunky, sensitive, a handful to handle despite huge amounts of exercise, always challenging the rules and incredibly curious - like a cat. I've taken him to so many places, not even a LightRail Train ride really faced him, and if it wasn't for his insatiable urge to fling himself onto anything that catches his eye he'd make a really good therapy dog ;)

GINGER BEAR

Seriously?

So, I was kinda hoping my human's gimpy brain had completely forgotten about the whole Ginger Bear thing. She hadn't called me Ginger Bear for like ages and I thought/hoped that meant the uber-dorky nickname had fallen out of her brain for good.

But no. Because when we were in that World Market place looking for pug gummies, something in the candy section made her all happy and squealy.
And it wasn't a bag of pug gummies.

Now I'm stuck with the name Ginger Bear again. My little Ginger Bear, to be exact. Can you get any more dorky?

Even worse than being called Ginger Bear is being told you look like a Ginger Bear. Yeah. Because according to my human, she calls me Ginger Bear because I look just like one. Like a short, fat, yellow bear. Made of ginger. From Australia.
Awesome.

I know we've talked dorky nicknames before, but I'm thinking there might be some new ones out there. Ones that are even more embarrassing than Ginger Bear. Anyone??

PS: my top 3 nicknames are Pugger, Little Creep and the dreaded Ginger Bear. Dutch's are Dutchie, Stink/Stinkpot and Boo.

* * *

TODAY IS TOTALLY SPECIAL
Happy Whelp Day to my friend Phoebe over the big Grey Bridge (in Vallejo)!! Me and Dutch will be eating for your specialness today :)

* * *

Oh! And this isn't exactly a juju situation, but Ellie down in hot hot hot Texas is stuck in a pink leg warmer thing after her knee surgery. I know a little juju would make her feel better.

LET'S EAT!

Well, I promised we'd be eating gummies today. And by 'we', I guess I really meant me. But don't feel bad, I'm not really eating gummies. Only my pictures are.

Sniff. Grab. Eat.

So, if you're lucky enough to convince your human to let you eat gummies, here's what you do: Sniff it once. Sniff it twice. Grab on and don't let go until it's in your belly. This might take awhile, especially if your human has a camera.

Tongue aerobics.

If your human says you're too tubey for gummies, tell them gummies are a good way to workout. I'm pretty sure you burn all the calories in a gummy just by chewing.

Chew to the left. Chew to the middle. Chew to the right.

Gummies are weird, but they're nothing to be afraid of. I promise - totally eatable and superyummy. Just sniff, grab and eat. Oh, and if you do something funny with your tongue your human will probably keep feeding you :)

* * *

Today's Specialness!
Happy Special Day to all our fishy friends! Swim on, Pearl and Goldey and Autumn and Sabrina :)

YUMMY!

So, as maybe-promised, we went gummy-hunting over the weekend. First we went to a place called World Market because that's where my human gets most of her weird/gross foreign candy.

World Market had LOADS of Haribo gummy things, but none of them were pug-shaped. I was totally OK with that when I found a 'super 3 pound bag' of bears - but my human insisted we keep looking.

Next stop was our neighborhood Walgreens. I know, weird. But it's on the way home from the dog park and someone there said there's a whole aisle of gummy stuff. This was true. Walgreens had cola gummies and frog gummies and fish gummies and many many MANY others. But still no pugs.

Since we were 0 for 2 and my human couldn't think of a third place to go, I begged her to let us get gummy SOMETHING. I also pointed out that they were even on sale. I totally didn't think she was going to say yes - but she must have been hungry or something because we walked out with a bag full of gummies.

We haven't given up on the hunt for gummy pugs (we'll keep you posted in case anyone else wants them too). But it might take awhile and when it comes to eatables, who wants to wait? Uhm, not me! Besides, I'm pretty sure when it's in your belly, a gummy is a gummy.

Tomorrow, we eat....

Get in my belly!

* * *

DAILY SPECIALNESS!
Happy Whelp Day to Paxton (just over the grey bridge in Oakland, CA). Don't tell my human, but I already ate 2 gummies to celebrate your day :)

GUMMY!

I'm trying to look extra cute today to make up for all the fish and snail pictures you've been looking at week. Uhm, make that Swedish + Meatball pictures.

Now that everyone has a name, I can go back to talking about really important things. Like food. Awhile ago Misiober in Poland (hi!) sent me a picture of this awesome human candy. It's kinda like the Swedish Fish candy my human loves so much, only gummier. And shaped like a pug!

My human loves gummy things, so I asked Google where we can find us some gummy pugs. Google found us gummy pigs:

And gummy cows:

And even gummy roadkill:

But no pugs. I've never eaten a gummy before so I begged my human to get us gummy something (gummy ANYTHING!). She said maybe - which is way better than a no and can usually be turned into a yes.

Does anyone here have any gummy experience? There are soooo many different kinds of gummies to pick from, I'm wondering what kind we should get. Y'know, if my human's no becomes a yes.

MEET MEETBALL!

click to biggify & you can see my eyes!

Well, it took my human about 4 million hours to take a decent picture of Meatball. But here he is, in all his Snailiness.

I don't understand why it took so long to take a picture of something that barely moves, but I guess Nikon couldn't handle it and Meatball is kinda like Dutch when it comes to cameras. Except worse because Dutch doesn't have a shell he can hide in.

Apparently this is one of Meatball's favorite poses:

I think you picked the most perfect names ever for Meatball the Snail & Swedish the Fish. If I had thumbs and/or could draw, I'd totally make a book about them. Oh, and it only took until this morning for my human to remember the whole Swedish Meatballs thing. Duh!

* * *

HAPPY DAY!
Much specialness going out to Flyer. I don't know where you live Flyer - but I hope it isn't hot hot hot there!

PUG PILLOW & SNAIL POLL

Since my human still hasn't been able to take a decent picture of Snail, I don't have one to show you yet. But I do have this picture my human/Droid took of me + Dutch sleeping last night, and I guess it's pretty cute. Cuter than a snail anyway.

At least I hope I'm cuter than a snail. Even if Dutch is sleeping on my face (and I have a dumb, really unoriginal name).

Speaking of names, here's one of those poll things so we can make Snail's new name official.

What should we name Snail?

* * *

WEDNESDAY SPECIALNESS
Happy Day to Mookie on the hot hot hot East coast (Hoboken, NJ). I hope you stay cool on your big day! It's not hot here at all, so I'll be staying cool for you (while eating an extra cookie in honor of your specialness).

TIME TO FEED THE PUG...

So, my human has been trying to find a brain-replacement Droid reminder app for like ever. Y'know, one that can help her remember, well, pretty much everything AND tell her what to remember instead of just making some annoying noise.

Well, she finally found one called Calendar Snooze (in case anyone else here needs an extra brain) and it's pretty cool. Especially if you can figure out how hack into your human's calendar and add a few reminders of your own. Because the coolest thing about Snooze is it will bug the poo out of you until you do what it says.

Yep. Bugs the poo until you obey.

This means that if the calendar says it's time to, say, feed the pug some bacon - Snooze will make sure it happens. And when it's time to feed the pug some SPAM, Snooze will say so. Again and again and again.

Just like this:



Is that cool or what???

MEET SWEDISH!

Holy SPAM. You guys are the best namers ever! Seriously. I'm so glad it was up to The Randomizer to pick a favorite because I had sooooooo many. So freaking many that I asked my human if we could please get 80 more fishes so we could use all of your names.

But even though I said please, my human still said no to a house full of fish. Something about not wanting to become a crazy fish lady? No idea. But thanks to The Randomizer and Milton the Dunkirk, NY pug (+ a silent/non-randomized vote from Noodles), Fish 2.0 is now Swedish!

Swedish is an awesome name because 1) the fish-formerly-known-as-Fish 2.0 looks like a Swedish Fish and 2) Swedish Fish are my human's #1 favorite candy on earth. I think Swedish really likes his new name too. Fish was kinda mean and now I'm kinda wondering if he was just mad/sad about having such a lame name. I mean, what if he just didn't feel loved?

Anyway.

Swedish is totally not mean so yesterday my human got a snail to keep him company. Fish was a snail killer, so the whole snail thing is kinda new to me. But the snail is pretty cool - big and yellow with giant eyes and crazy antennae things he uses to find food (I think). He can detect the tiniest bits of food from the other side of the bowl. My human says he must be part pug.

Whatever.

I'm kinda thinking before snail ends up with the name "Snail", we (and by we, I mostly mean you) should name him too. Anyone know the Japanese word for snail??

PSes:
Minnie ~ you've got my juju!! I hope you're feeling better :O
Eddie ~ yes! Lots of tick potential near Stinson. Definitely do pit checks. And watch out for sharks - especially great big white ones.
Swisher + Oakley ~ so glad one of us got to see the A's game. We were supposed to be there with Boka (with the green + yellow spots) but my human's stupid freaking mouth had some issue. Apparently she'd rather go back to the dentist than a baseball game. I'm really starting to hate this dentist guy.

* * *

TODAY'S SPECIALNESS
As far as I know, today isn't special. But Saturday was - Happy Whelp, Lucky! - and yesterday was too - more happy to Frankie! Unfortunately, I won't be eating cookies in honor of your days (human says I'm getting tubey) but I will be eating an extra carrot.

FISH 2.0 NEEDS YOUR HELP!

So, it's no secret that my human sucks at naming things. Dutch is from Holland and according to Google, when you're from Holland you are Dutch. Sure, he came with the name Dutch - but a lot of dogs get new names. Obviously my human couldn't think of a better one.

And then there's me. My name used to be Tanker, but my human called me Puglet instead because I was a pug and I was small. Now that I'm big, she just calls me Pug. Unless I do something bad and/or ignore the first 3 times she yells "Pug!"... then I'm Puglet.

A Dutch dog named Dutch and a pug named Pug. See what I mean about the naming thing??

So last night when The Man brought my human a get-well fish to fill the empty bowl, she was all ready to call him Fish. Just like the last Fish. And when I told her that was really lame, she said "How about Fish 2.0 then?".

UGH.

Of course I totally vetoed Fish 2.0 and suggested that you'd all be much better at picking out a name for Fish 2.0. Y'know, since everyone here is so smart and awesome and stuff. So give me your best fish names & I'll let The Randomizer pick a completely random favorite.

PS: Fish is a he and he is red, blue and kinda shiny.

* * *

SPECIALNESS
Happy Whelp to Lando in Cleveland, OH and also the Michigan Puggie!! I'll be eating a squirrel cookie for lunch to celebrate your day (yep - a squirrel cookie).

P.P.S: I'm not going to comment until Monday so The Randomizer doesn't get all screwed up - but we're up to Rybka and we LOVE the names so far :)

THE SOMETHING BAD

Well. As some of you guessed, the something bad that happened on the table had to do with food. And, uhm, me.

Here's what happened....

Lily's mom made everyone some snacks - and by "everyone" I mean everyone human. Me and Dutch got a few little bites of stuff, but it's not like we got a whole plate full of stuff to eat or anything. Dutch found a piece of rotting turkey or something in a tube to suck on, but I didn't and I was hungry.

So when the humans were done snacking, and Lily's mom put the giant plate of leftovers on the dining room table then went outside, I kinda thought maybe I was free to eat them. So I did.

I ate the cheese. I ate the crackers. And I totally didn't want to be rude, so I even tried to eat the apples. But apples are gross so they mostly got spit out. When there was nothing left in the bowls, I went back outside to play. I didn't think any of this was a problem until I heard Harry's mom yelling, "Uhm, something bad happened on the table."

Uhhhh.

At first I was just going to pretend I had nothing to do with any of it. Dutch ate butter off the kitchen counter last time we were there, I figured they'd just blame him. But then my human got Droid out to take pictures of the dining room table massacre and I *totally* forgot about pretending to be innocent. My inner supermodel told me it was time to pose, so I got up on the table and posed with my mess.

Not the best idea.

Hint: if you ever do something and don't want anyone to know you're the one who did it, DON'T pose for pictures with the evidence!

UHM, SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED ON THE TABLE

Something bad happened here.

My human is still only about 60% human and I don't have thumbs (or one of those intern people) so I'm going to need your help with today's post. I mean, you all know how much I suck at Wordless Wednesdays.

So, today's picture is from Saturday when we went to Lily + Harry's house. And the title of today's post is what one of Lily + Harry's moms said when she walked into the dining room and saw... well... what you see in the picture.

Can anyone guess what kind of bad thing happened on the table? Y'know - like if I had thumbs and/or a 100% human, what would the whole story be?

Hint: I don't like apples.

My human says if I let her be miserable for one more day, she'll let me have her thumbs back tomorrow. Woo hoo!

* * *

DAILY SPECIALNESS
Huge happy Whelp Day Buford T. Justice up in Petaluma, CA! I'll be eating some bully penis for you, dude!

Pssst - if you don't already know, Buford T has an online bully penis (and other tasty stuff) store and donates part of every sale to pugpros pug rescue. Good stuff!

WISDOM TOOTH TUESDAY

This was pretty much my day - lots of laying around watching my wisdom-toothless human lay around. I hope your day was better than ours...

WISDOM REMOVAL?

Hey everybody! Supersorry you missed me on Friday. I know I missed you :(

My human had to have some more stuff done to her teeth - or, uh, tooth - and it kinda temporarily killed her. She has to go back to the tooth vet again (like, now) so it's going to be kinda sucky around here again today.

Weird thing is, I heard her say something about getting wisdom removed. I didn't want to say anything, but I'm pretty sure her gimpy brain needs all the wisdom it has left. Anyone know why a human would need to have wisdom removed? And what on earth that has to do with teeth??

Confused.

* * *

DELAYED SPECIALNESS
Happy whelp day to Payton!! She has to celebrate her special day on Friday without us, so let's celebrate big time for her today :)

FREAKING PTERODACTYL??

GINORMOUS

Before my human's brain liquified we went for a hike with the cows. It's been awhile and all the baby moos are either grown or gone, so all the cow pies are big and old (still eatable, but not nearly as tasty). Old pies aren't really worth hunting for, so I decided to look around for other stuff to eat.

Well. I didn't find any eatables. But I did find a ginormous footprint in the mud. It had three toes and was about the size of my head. A few minutes later, I found another ginormous thing. It had stripes like a zebra I saw on Animal Planet once. And it smelled WEIRD. Scary weird.

My human said it (and the giant feet) belong to some kind of bird, but she didn't know what kind. So I asked Google to tell me about ginormous flying things and the answer I got was pterodactyl:

Holy. I'm really hoping Google is really wrong about this one. Anyone here know of any birds that have huge feet and stripes like a zebra? And, uhm, do they eat small dogs??

I AM SORRY...

For not being here yesterday. I think my human's brain liquefied or imploded or something? No idea, but it's kind of annoying and really getting in the way of my blogging. I think I need one of those intern people. Someone with thumbs and a brain that doesn't implode.

Anyway. I am also sorry that I cannot tell this deliciousness in a single word. That's right, I cannot tell this deliciousness in a single word. It says so on the bag. Right next to the picture of a cow and the words Butter & Salt Candy.

My human bought the candy at the Japanese store where she gets the Panda heads. I guess sometimes the words on the bags from Japan aren't 100% right in english (technical term: translation). Apparently my human thought Butter & Salt Candy was going to taste like something other than butter and salt.

But it totally didn't. To her, anyway.

Get in my belly!

She says it tasted NASTY, like movie theater popcorn in candy form. I thought that sounded pretty tasty and of course I was totally right. The bad translation on the bag was also totally right. I cannot tell this deliciousness in a single word either. But it looks something like this:

* * *

RETRO SPECIALNESS!!!
Get ready to eat because we have some serious catching up to do. Happy Days to Phobe in Gladstone, OR and Gromit in East Lansing, MI. Both celebrated Whelp Day on July 1.

Yesterday was Noodles Day down in San Jose (Happy Noodles!!!) and also the special day for Rooney (somewhere but I don't know where).

HAPPY HOTDOGS!

This is my cousin Sophie in New Jersey. I guess she thought no one would notice her sneaking into July 4th BBQs if she disguised herself as a hot dog. Totally genius idea, right?

Too bad the only costume I have is a lobster. I'm pretty sure people don't BBQ lobsters on the 4th (and don't think I'd want to eat one even if they did).

I don't know if today is Special, so let's all eat extra cookies just in case.

PS: Please send Juju to Frankie's family in Seattle before anyone else gets broken! And Frankie, maybe tell your people to stay off your bikes for awhile?