WE SURVIVED (BARELY)

Helllllo! It's me again. Pug said I could be here today if I let him have the first bite of Taco Bell on the way home from our trip to hell camping. I had to promise not to talk about the Taco Bell because he wants to do that himself, but I am allowed to tell you about our weekend in hell.

First there was dirt. Everywhere.

Then we climbed a mountain to sleep in a thing that's supposed to be like a house but is NOTHING LIKE A HOUSE. I was a little panicked and a lot unhappy. 

There were bugs. And SPIDERS.  

Then it got dark. Sorry, I don't have a picture of the dark because it was too dark to take one. If you close your eyes, it was like that. Except scarier. Because of the spiders. And other things I'm too afraid to talk about.

In the morning we ate food out of bags like wild animals. Now we are home and I am happy. Whoever invented camping probably never slept in a real bed in a real house with NO spiders in it.

I need another trip to the spa!


Pink hearts + yellow moons,

Dutch
xoxo

DUTCH FRIDAY: slight panic

Hi again! I'm a little anxious right now so I can't completely tell you how amazing our trip to the spa was, or that our hike in the redwoods was soooo Zen.

Sorry. 

Ok.

Breathe. 

I don't know if you've noticed, but humans talk a lot. Even quiet humans like mine. I used to try to understand every word but it was very exhausting so now I mostly just listen for my name, important words about food or love and clues that something bad might happen. 

Bad things like what our human said yesterday:

Blah blah blah so we don't die driving back down the mountain.

So much scary!

ME: what do you think that means?

PUG: uh, that she doesn't want to kill us?

ME: and the mountain part??

PUG: oh, right. Hmmmm. Uh. Ooooooh!

The way he said ooooooh made the words die and mountain feel even scarier and bad. 

ME: ooooooh what? What ooooooh?!?

PUG: dude, it's Pride weekend. 

ME: ???

PUG: you know, camping?

ME: oooooh. Noooooo!

If you've never spent the night in a tent (or NOT in a tent), camping is almost worse than dying on a mountain. It is dirty, there are bugs, you are forced to eat out of baggies. Camping practically *is* dying on a mountain! 

Ugh.

Pug says I'm a princess for feeling this way about the "great outdoors" but I believe the outdoors are much, much greater when you aren't forced to sleep in them. Walking through the trees is zen. Sleeping with them, not so much.

Ok. Breathe. Breathe.

  

My human could have been talking about a movie, right? Or a book? Probably a book. Pug could be wrong. Maybe this year we will stay in the city with the naked people and become one with the rainbows. We could watch the parade!!  

Breathe. Breathe.

I'll let you know next week. If we survive.

Kisses with kisses on top,

Dutch

xoxo

I THOUGHT THERE'D BE CUPCAKES

So. Uhm. My human got me trees. For my birthday. Yeah, I know. That's what I said. 

At first I thought maybe she forgot it was my big day. I mean, it's not like that hasn't happened before and you never know what her gimpy brain is going to do. But when we got to the Redwoods and she said Happy Birthday Pug! I knew she'd really just gotten me trees. 

HUMAN: hey Pug, what's wrong?

ME: I thought there'd be cupcakes.

HUMAN: in the woods?

ME: (silence)

Trees are kinda like baths. They're nice, but don't exactly want them for my birthday. I don't care if they're giant old trees either, you still can't eat them. But my human was excited and Dutch was excited so I tried to pretend I was too. Even though what I reeeally wanted was a cupcake.

After the trees, we dropped Mazda off at the vet and our friend Lulu's mom drove us home. I was hoping we might stop at a cupcake place like we do every freaking year, but it didn't happen. 

The Big Six officially sucked. 

Until we went for our post-dinner walk and my human ran into this place called Mollie Stones. Sometimes she buys our carrots there so I didn't too get excited. I had no idea Mollie also bakes stuff!

Two seconds and one bite later, the Big Six went from being the suckiest birthday ever to, well, this:

Happy birthday to me!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

The Big Six is finally here! And I guess this is such a big deal that the celebrating started yesterday - with a trip to the "spa". Yeah. I know. This is what happens when Dutch gets to pick out gifts. 

He thought it would be relaxing. And I tried to feel relaxed because he was so freaking excited about it, but as much as I like baths, why would anyone want one for their birthday??

I kinda wanted to tell him the dog wash isn't exactly the same thing as a spa, but I had some time to think during my deep conditioning treatment and decided to keep the truth to myself. I'm older and wiser than I was when I was five and know how much Dutch really loves me, even though his way of showing it is kinda weird.

 

When the spa or whatever was over, we took our usual detour to the cookie buffet. The cookies are a little taller than me and Dutch always sticks his snout into them before I can reach them, and by the time I do it's totally too late because my human is already yelling. But this time he didn't. 

Instead, he said happy birthday, I love you, now hurry up and eat before someone sees you.

Happy Birthday to me!!

ALMOST WORDLESS: half a pair

Sometimes there is only one.

WHEN WISHES COME TRUE

Well, Dutch's wish came true. He wanted less excitement and we just had a whole entire weekend of it. It started on Saturday when my human woke up with a 103 fever and ended in a very long two days of nothing but boring. 

The closest I got to an adventure was smelling the bottom of my human's shoes during a sympathy/woe is me Jimmy. Unless you count peeing and stuff in the backyard, which totally does not count. Or sleeping. There was lots of that. 

Uhm, yeah. Pretty exciting stuff.

The good news is whatever was wrong seems to be done now. I told Dutch to please be more careful about what he wishes for. My birthday is coming up and if he has some new magic power to make wishes come true, I don't want him ruining anything. 

DUTCH FRIDAY: exciting + less exciting = happy

Hello friends! As usual, I can't believe it's already Friday. Again! The past week was just a regular week. Nothing crazy bad or crazy good, the days just sort of... happened. 

In a good, warm and sunny way :)

Sometimes part of me wishes every single day could be full of crazy fun and exciting things. But the rest of me thinks if that was true I'd have to spend a lot more time napping just to stay awake. Not that more naps would be a terrible thing, but it seems kinda of silly to sleep just so you can stay awake. 

Luckily, life is full of less exciting things to keep us from getting too overwhelmed. Things like standing in line at the post office:

Or saying hello to a friend.

And naps. 

Of course running into Ernie is not the same as standing in line at the post office because I love Ernie and only like the post office, but I think you know what I mean. 

Pug said he heard some things about next week that make me think there might be more excitement than I'll know what to do with. This worries me a little but I think after the last bunch of weeks of I'm ready for it. 

I hope! 

xoxo,

Dutch

VOICE IN MY HEAD

After months and months of trying pretty much everything me, my human and Google could think of, I finally found a cure for my snoring habit!

It happened last night by accident when my human gently moved shoved me off her side of the bed after I took over the whole entire thing somehow accidentally landed there. 

Now, I hate hate HATE being on my back. It's only happened like five times in my life and four of those times, I was asleep (time #5 was after eating the cramit brahooley). But last night when I landed belly-up, a little voice in my head said play dead and she will leave you alone. So I did and she did and this morning I woke up in the bed where I belong.

I have no idea where this voice came from, who it belongs to or why I haven't heard it before - but I reeeeally want to know what else it knows. Like, how do you open the refrigerator? Where can I get a free bacon breakfast? Why don't I ever get to eat lunch??

Dutch said he only ever hears voices coming from outside his head and when I asked my human about it, she looked at me kinda funny so I stopped asking questions. Google said some stuff about head-voices that kinda freaked me out and now I'm a little worried about the voice. 

Do you think I might be possessed?? 

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

We ran into our neighbor Ernie yesterday. You remember him, the adorable little puppy who drove humans (and me) crazy with ridiculous cuteness? Uhm. Yeah. Somebody's not so little anymore.

I'm not 100% sure how this happened. Since he's our neighbor, we see Ernie all the time and I don't remember him being this… well... GIANT. I mean, he's always been giant for a puppy - but now he's giant for anybody. He's even bigger than Dutch and Dutch is old.

Not like I'm complaining or anything. Giant puppies look a whole lot like regular dogs and humans don't go nearly as nuts over them. This means Ernie won't be sucking so much attention out of my neighborhood and that means more attention for me.

I will complain about the kissing though. Ernie is a kisser. And now that he's officially giant, I guess I'm not that scary anymore so even when I say no to the kissing he does it anyway. 

My human says there are worse things than being kissed by a sweet giant puppy, like going to the vet or stepping on a scale. And I guess she's right. Ernie's not so bad. I just wish he'd stick with Dutch for the kissing. He actually likes it.

ALMOST WORDLESS: signs

When you start looking, there are conspiracies EVERYWHERE!

CONSPIRACY

Lately these weird signs have started popping up on our walks. It started at the beach with the poop fairy. Or the no poop fairy. Or whatever. Then yesterday I saw another one a few blocks from our house. Something to do with live young children:

These are just the cute signs. There are others. 

My human says the signs are because some people are too lazy or gross (or both) to pick up their dog's poop. Of course she doesn't understand the joy of finding a pile of stray freshies on the the sidewalk. Or even a stale pile. Any kind of pile works for me.

I think the signs are a conspiracy. I think someone is trying to systematically kill my joy by eliminating all the stray poop in San Francisco. Seriously. There's like one kid in my neighborhood and he's too busy with Noe So Cute to worry about poop. Don't even get me started about the Fairy.

Dutch says the world is full of conspiracies, but this isn't one of them. 

ME: but they're trying to steal my poop!
DUTCH: stray poop belongs to the land.
ME: Google says possession is nine-tenths of the law.
HUMAN: don't try to confuse us with your math.

Ugh. Free snacks or not, this sign thing is kinda scary. First they get rid of the stray poop, next thing you know they'll be going after the poop makers. Yeah. That's how conspiracies work. So be on the lookout for signs in your your neighborhood. Your poop could be next!

DUTCH FRIDAY: like a clam

Pug is a little like a clam. Hard on the outside, with soft and squishy insides . It doesn't happen very much, but sometimes he lets his insides out...

PUG: hey, sorry I made fun of your brûlée. It was kinda awesome.

ME: that's ok.

PUG: and I didn't mean it when I said you're old and fat. 

ME: I know.
PUG: you know I love you, right?
ME: I think so.
PUG: cool. So, uhm, can move your foot? I think you're standing on a french fry.

It usually happens when he wants something, but it's still nice. 

xoxo
Dutch

PS: When I moved my foot, he ate the whole fry.

FULL OF BRAHOOLEY

I think my days are messed up. Blame the cramit brahooley. I had to share it with Dutch and his big fat tongue and that part wasn't entirely awesome but the rest was... holy! There are no words. No words. 

I should probably just show you.

First, I crammed the brahooley into my face:

Ridiculously awesome. So I crammed some more. Nom Nom Nom. More. Nom Nom Nom. SO good. Like, better than bacon good. 

When the brahooley was gone, I was sad. But I was also happy. 

VERY happy. It was kinda weird.

I've never felt that kind of happy before and wanted it to last forever. I tried to stay reeeally still so the feeling wouldn't go anywhere, but after a few minute of ceiling staring, the happy was gone. And when it went, I felt bad.

Like, really bad. I mean like turn your eyeballs sideways kind of bad.  

So I closed my sideways eyeball and slept. And slept. And slept. And dreamed about brahooley.

I'm pretty sure I lost a day somewhere in there. And I'm sorry if I did. But I'd do it again for a few bites of cramit brahooley and I'm sorry for that too. My human says we won't be getting brahooley again any time soon. I guess she's never eaten one and had no idea they're so full of sugar. 

Sigh.


PS: Please don't tell Dutch his weirdo food pick tasted almost better than bacon. 

ALMOST WORDLESS: so

So not happy. So not fair.

CRAMIT BRAHOOLEY

All of Dutch's blood came back ok, the vet said he's just old. And fat. And maybe a little arthritic? Whatever that means. He has to take some pills for a week to see if they help him feel young and skinny like me.

Ok, so maybe the vet didn't say the part about Dutch being old and fat. But when you're me and you're starving to death and it's your fat spotted brother's turn to pick the food and he decides creme brûlée would be "the best possible human eatable, ever" you speak the truth. Even if it's kinda mean. 

Sigh.

If you've never met a creme brûlée, it looks like this:

And sounds like this:

Cramit brahooley? It even sounds nasty. Not that I'd know. Our cramit brahooley is still in the fridge because on the walk home from the brulee cart, Dutch's princess belly decided it wasn't happy about the new drugs and my human says you shouldn't eat dessert if your poop is like soup.

ME: what kind of stupid rule is that?!? 
HUMAN: (silence)
ME: but my poop is fine!
HUMAN: (silence)
ME: me and my poop are STARVING!! Give us some freaking brahooley!

No go. The cramit brahooley is still in the fridge. Dutch is still fat and I'm still starving. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

DUTCH FRIDAY: fat slacker

Hi everybody. Pug will probably say I didn't get here until so late because I'm a fat slacker, but the truth is I haven't been feeling 100% and had to go the vet today. First I had to skip breakfast, then I had to go to the vet. Then I had to recover from going to the vet. And now I'm here to tell you how exhausting a trip to the vet can be.

Before I saw the doctor, I had to see the scale. I've never really understood why Pug hates the scale so much - until today. After 10+ years of scale love, all of a sudden I'm fat. Or at least fatter than I was last time we saw each other. Almost 5 pounds fatter!! 

After the scale (and Pug) told everyone how fat I am, the doctor did some poking and things got stuck into places I don't wish to talk about. They sucked my blood, then they sucked my pee. Out of my body. With a needle. It didn't hurt but that doesn't make it any less weird. 

By the time it was all over, I had nothing left to give. All I wanted was breakfast and a nap. So I ate. Then I collapsed on the Spoonk mat for a nap. A long, loooooong post-vet nap. 

Hugs + Spoonk,

Dutch

xoxo

HEAR DOGGY

Dutch does this thing where he runs around the house squeaking a squeaky toy like a complete freak. It usually happens early in the morning and drives my human (and probably our downstairs neighbors) nuts. 

DUTCH: squeaky squeaky squeeeeek! squeaky squeaky squeeeeek!

HUMAN: Dutch! Shhhhh.

DUTCH: squeaky squeak.

HUMAN: Dutch!

Annoying as it is, it's not Dutch's fault his squeaky toys make noise. I mean, that's what they do. And I guess my human felt bad about getting mad at him for squeaking because she came up with a solution: Hear Doggy silent squeakers.

Ok, so maybe it was Google or Miley's mom who came up with the idea. Whatever. It meant new toys for both of us. Dutch got a red thing that looks kinda like a stomach and I got a little blue dude with a giant head and even bigger eyes. My human said it reminded her of me.

Anyway. The only thing I don't like about getting a new toy is having to sit there and wait while my human points Steve at me and the new thing I'm dying to play with. You know I like to pose and everything, but toys are for playing - not posing.

Still, I let my human take two whole pictures before snatching the blue dude out of her hand. That pretty much put an end to the pictures.

HUMAN: can you hear it?
ME: hear what?
HUMAN: the squeaking.
ME: huh?
HUMAN: the toy. Does it squeak???

Hello. It's a squeaky toy. What the heck else would it do?? That's when my human tried to explain dog hearing vs people hearing and how these special toys can, quote, only be heard by ears that actually enjoy the hideous sound of a squeaker. 

Uhm. OK. I have no idea if that's true because my little blue dude and Dutch's weird stomach-looking thing sound like every other squeaker toy I've ever had. The only thing I don't hear when we play with them is the sound of my human whisper-yelling at Dutch to stop squeaking his freaking toys so early in the morning. 

BORROWED HUMANS

So, I don't know how many full-time humans you have but I only have one. Of course I totally love her and everything, but sometimes having only one human is kinda lame. Especially when you have to share her with Dutch. And stupid Steve. 

But because I'm a genius, I've figured out a way to get more of the stuff that makes humans so awesome. Y'know, attention and petting stuff (still working on the treats part). The secret? It's called the library. Yeah, the place with the books.

I guess the library is technically a place to borrow books, but it's also an awesome place to borrow humans. Seriously. Check this out:

See what I mean? All you have to do is, uh, nothing and there will be humans all over you. And not just any humans. Book-loving humans. The kind who think staring at words is fun. You know how much more exciting it is to pet a dog like me? 

Yeah. Goldmine. 

Lucky for me, my human loves to stare at words and the library is waaay cheaper than amazon. It's also on the way to the park we poop in so we get to go there a lot. It kinda sucks we can't take humans home with us like books, but we try.

ALMOST WORDLESS: the alley lady

A little weird, a little creepy. 

DUTCH MONDAY: gluten vs. foxtail

Happy Monday! Sorry I missed you on our usual day, but I was still a little traumatized by my brush with the devil. More on that in a minute.

Since I was here last time, two things have happened. One thing was nice, one was not. The nice thing was a bath. It was warm, full of bubbles and ended with a cookie and a pink towel. I had to share the tub with Pug, but it was still soooo relaxing! 

The other thing was not relaxing. It looked like this:

I'm sorry for being gross! I'm only telling you this grossness so it doesn't happen to you. It's what happens when you eat a foxtail and it gets stuck on the way down. 

If you don't know what a foxtail is, it's an evil plant that wants to kill you. I don't know why foxtails are such haters, but they are NOT nice. On the outside they look like any other planty thing. But on the inside they are the devil:

Getting a devil plant stuck in your throat is NOT a good time. It was hard to breathe and I puked up my breakfast. Walking with the devil is hard because walking makes you breathe more and breathing with the devil in your throat hurts. 

Lucky for me, a nice ranger lady drove us back to Mazda so I didn't have to walk very far. I assumed our next stop would be the vet's, but on the way there we took a strange detour. To the House of Bagels.

I know. I thought the same thing. Especially since my human isn't allowed to eat gluten anymore and that's all a bagel is. At first I thought maybe she just had to pee because that happens a lot, but then she came out with a bag. It was all very confusing.

HUMAN: bagel time!
ME: but I thought gluten was evil?
PUG: dude, icksnay on the evilnay!
HUMAN: it is, but sometimes you have to fight evil with evil.
PUG: no idea what that means, but do I get to eat evil too?

What happened next was practically a miracle. After three bites of bagel, the devil plant was out of my throat. Gone. I could breathe and drink and eat more bagel without anything hurting. Best of all, no trip to the vet!

My human says we were just lucky and bagels aren't a miracle cure for anything, but she's just grumpy. I know the truth. Now you do too.


Love & Bagels,

Dutch
xoxo