WITH AN 'S'

So of course when brother Dutch heard about my New Year's revolution he had to have one too. Brothers are like that.

ME: But you're not hefty. My revolution is about looking like a tube.
DUTCH: Don't they make revolutions for skinny dogs?
ME: Uh, maybe? I don't know.
DUTCH: Hey - what exactly is a revolution, anyway?

Uh, kinda embarrassing, but I had no idea how to answer that. I just knew my revolution would make me less tubular in the new year. So I asked my friend Google about it.

GOOGLE: A revolution?
ME: Yup.
GOOGLE: Puglet, a revolution is a radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure, esp. one made suddenly and often accompanied by violence; an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.
ME: Huh what?

Google then explained that maybe I really meant a New Year's resolution, with an S. A resolution is when you decide you're going to do something and then do it. That makes a lot more sense to me than overthrowing a government, or whatever.

Now that I know what a New Year's resolution really is, I have a few of them:

1. Lose some heftiness.

2. Be a better bloggee. How do you all know to come here everyday?? I want to read your blogs too because they are really good, but my gimpy brained human never remembers. Unless someone says, Hey, go read my post from last Wednesday, she forgets to go to them. Any suggestions??

3. Help homeless pugs.

4. Uh....

I'm still working on #4. This resolution stuff is so cool, I don't want to stop at #3 (hint: Google says they work better if you write them down). Does anyone else here have resolutions??

NEW YEAR'S REVOLUTION

Christmas was so confusing, I'm not even going to try to understand New Years. I asked my human about it but gave up when she got to the part about fizzy drinks and a giant ball dropping off a building. In some place called Times Square. At midnight.

If a ball was dropping off a building here in San Francisco, during waking hours, I might be interested. But it's not. So all I know about New Year's is that when it gets here, I have to start walking off my heftiness. My human said getting rid of heftiness will be my New Year's revolution. Or something like that. She said a lot of people start revolutions on January 1st because it's the first day of a brand new year.

Huh?

Like I said, confusing. Luckily my human has a New Year's tradition I can actually understand: on the last day of every year, she takes pictures. Not just any pictures though. I mean, she does that like every day. These pictures are special because she takes them with an old camera her mother gave her like a million years ago.

I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I guess this camera is extrasuperspecial because it was the first one she ever owned. It also eats something called film (?) and can only take 36 pictures before it gets full. And I guess when the camera gets full, the old year can be over and a new one can start.

I'm kinda excited about this end-of-year picture taking thing. I usually get lots of cookies when my human uses her camera and I need to eat all the cookies I can get before I have to start my New Year's revolution.

KENTUCKY FRIED CHRISTMAS

I know. It's almost New Years and I'm still talking about Christmas. But this really isn't about Christmas. It's about chicken. And THE best thing we did to celebrate Christmas.

So after the presents, and the cookies, and the snow... came the drive-thru. It was my first drive-thru and I didn't know what to make of it. A box with pictures of food on it yelled at us. My human yelled back at it. This happened a few times. Then a lady reached out of a window and tried to steal money from my human. At least that's what it looked like to us dogs, so we barked real loud to scare away the window lady.

Our plan seemed to work, but it also made my human mad:

GUYS! One more bark and no one gets nuggets!

Nuggets? I didn't know that's what we were doing. We'd been playing in the snow all day and nuggets sounded reeeeeallly good. But when I looked out the window, I didn't see a Popeye's sign. Just a picture of a guy that kinda looked like Santa but with cooler glasses, a better haircut and no goofy hat.

Me: Where are we?
Human: KFC
Me: Is that guy on the sign Santa?
Human: No, that's The Colonel
Me: Oh

No idea who The Colonel is, what he has to do with Christmas, or what he did to Popeye. But we left KFC with a bucket of yummy nuggets. My friends Jack and Vegas were with us so I had to share my nuggets with them. And brother Dutch too. AND The Man.

My human is the only one who didn't want a piece of my nuggets. But shared nuggets are better than no nuggets at all. Especially after playing in the snow all day. And especially on Christmas.

ABONIMABLE SNOW PUG?

I hope everyone who does Christmas had a good one with lots of cookies and goodies and toys. Me and brother Dutch got some really fun stuff to play with (xmas-lobsters and rubber chickens dressed like Santa). My human refused to make me homemade cowpies, but I did get to eat the yummy cookies cousin Sophie sent us.

My human also made us leave some of our cookies out for Santa (no idea why) but I guess Santa doesn't like dog cookies because they were still there when I checked on them in the middle of the night. I didn't want my human to feel dumb for leaving dog cookies out for Santa so I ate them. Please don't tell her that though.

Besides eating cookies, the best thing about Christmas was the snow. My human said the only time she misses winter is at Christmas - that Christmas isn't Christmas without snow. Uhm. I thought Christmas wasn't Christmas without cookies? Or Santa. Or a weird leafless tree. I thought we had Christmas covered.

Human special-days can be so confusing!

Confusing can be fun though. We don't get snow here in San Francisco, so we took a trip to where the snow lives. I'd never played in snow before and it was really really cool. It was like going to the beach, but colder. Snow is waaaay more fun to eat than sand. I didn't get in trouble for eating snow and it didn't give me eye-snot like sand does. You pugs (and non-pugs) who get to live in snow are SO lucky!

TO be honest, I'd been kinda skeptical about the whole Christmas thing - with the goofy tree and scary Santas. But after the toys and cookies and snow, it might be my favorite special-day of the year.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

ENJOY THE COOKIES!!!

IT'S ABOUT COOKIES

This Christmas stuff has been keeping my human super-busy. I don't know what she's been doing, but me and brother Dutch haven't been getting as much attention as usual.

Normally, this would be a really bad thing. But not at Christmas time. Because a busy human = a human that can't watch what you do every minute of the day. And a busy human with a gimpy brain = a human can't watch you every minute of the day AND forgets to do a lot of stuff.

Y'know, like putting Christmas goodies out of dog's reach. Yup. I snooped. And it looks like I'll be getting LOTS of cool stuff under my weird leafless tree tomorrow. My human got kinda mad at the snooping and said we have to wait until Christmas Day to get our presents. I don't know why (this seems kinda dumb) but she did let us have some Christmas cookies my cousin Sophie sent us.

Sophie says it isn't Christmas without cookies (Sophie is a genius). Forget Santa. And the weird leafless tree. This special-day is all about COOKIES!

SECRET RECIPE

I forgot to ask yesterday, does anyone here speak cow?

I've been trying to talk to the cows for a long time. At first I just wanted to say hi cow, I'm Pug, how are you? Then I wanted to thank them for making such tasty pies. But now I have something superimportant to talk to them about.

Y'see, I asked my human if she could make me a cow-pie for Christmas dinner. She said she can't make cowpies because only cows can make cowpies. I want to ask the cows their secret recipe, but anytime I've tried to talk to cows, one of four things has happened:

the cows stare blankly at me and say nothing
the cows stare blankly at me and say mooo
the cows chase me away
the cows run away from me

I reeeally want to eat homemade cowpie on Christmas. We'll be out of town and there aren't any cows where we're going. Any ideas on how to get the cow's secret recipe??

BIRDS, BEES & BABYCOW PIES

After hearing the news about my tubey-ness, my human suggested we go for a long walk. So we headed over the bridge to hike with the cows. My spotted friends Boka and Miley came along too.

I was super excited to have Boka and Miley along, but not nearly as excited as brother Dutch. He was acting all goofy and weird. Really weird. Especially towards Miley. He kept uh, you know, humping her. He got so crazy and excited that he confused Boka with Miley and humped Boka by mistake... on the head! It was totally embarrassing.

ME: dude, what's your malfunction?
DUTCH: Miley is hot!
ME: huh?
DUTCH: you know, she's in heat
ME: huh?
DUTCH: she wants to make babies
ME: how do you know?
DUTCH: nevermind

Dutch was too busy humping everyone to explain anything to me so I asked my human what on earth he was talking about. She kinda laughed, then started babbling about birds and bees. I have no idea what birds or bees have to do with Miley being hot and wanting to make babies. Or with Dutch trying to hump everybody.

But whatever.

Who wants to talk about bees when there are fresh babycow-pies to eat? Boka and Miley had never eaten fresh babycow-pies before and said they tasted superyummy. We got yelled at. We got called "pooh-eaters". But we still kept on eating. And eating. And eating...

Until Boka decided it wasn't enough just to eat the babycow-pies - he had to roll in them too. That's when our humans lost it, broke out the leashes and put a quash on the pie eating :(

So FYI - it's semi-OK to eat pooh, but totally NOT OK to roll in it.

HEFTY HEFTY HEFTY?

On Friday I went to the vet for my annual check-up. The doctor listened to my heart, looked in my ears and mouth, then stuck something up my butt. I didn't mind the looking or the listening, but I wasn't a huge fan of the sticking-up-the-butt part.

When it was over I got a cookie and a lecture. Actually my human got the lecture, but it was about me. Or parts of me anyway. The doctor said we need to keep a close eye on two things: my teeth and my weight.

I don't know about you, but I hate toothbrushes. I mean, they're fun to chew on but the whole brushing thing kinda sucks. Those little finger-brushy things are even worse because they're not even good for chewing on. So I try to discourage my human from going near my teeth by squirming a lot whenever she tries. The vet said she needs to try harder.

As for my weight... At 25.1 pounds, the doctor said I'm starting to look a little tubular. Tubular? My human explained that 'tubular' is the same as tube-y, which is what she calls dogs who don't have waists. She says when a dog is shaped like a tube, it means they need to eat less.

Eat less??? Me?

No Popeyes? No pie? No cheetos??? No way. Life would not be the same with less food in it. I begged my human not to take my food away and asked if there's something else we can do to make me less tubey.

Exercise, she said. If you won't eat less, you have to move more.

Well, DUH. I'd so rather move more than eat less! I haven't gotten any of my Christmas goodies yet, so my human said I could wait until the New Year to start my new exercise routine. She says that's when lots of people start walking off their tubey-ness.

LAST WORD ON CHRISTMAS

Don't worry, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life talking about Christmas. It's just that it seems like such a big deal to humans; from embellishing a special tree to the whole Santa thing, to all those stupid songs my human hates but can't stop singing because they are EVERYWHERE and get stuck in her head.

Christmas seems... well... important.

But after the recent Santa outfit incident I seriously thought about boycotting it. Google says lots of people don't do Christmas. Some people do Hanukkah. Some do Kwanzaa. Why can't I be one of those people? I mean pugs.

Google also told me about something called the Christmas Resistance Movement (I think it's for people who don't like Santa) and I kinda liked the sound of that. But when I told my human about wanting to skip Christmas, she said if I skip Christmas there won't be any goodies for me under the tree on Christmas morning.

Uhm, is it just me or does that sound a little bit like blackmail? Celebrate this confusing, weird special-day... or else?!? Well. Her ultimatum just made me want to skip Christmas even more. And I was about to join The Resistance when two really, uh, jolly things happened.

Jolly thing #1: When The Man saw yesterday's picture, he felt really bad for buying me that Santa outfit. So he took back the goofy Santa suit and got me my very own weird leafless tree, with tree-toys on it and everything (I kinda ate one by mistake - they kinda looked like cookies. Please don't tell Santa).

Jolly thing #2: My buddy Spencer sent me this special greeting from a Santa. Santa said he's been watching me (kinda creepy, but ok) and knows I've been a very good boy. Santa also had a book with my picture in it along with a reminder to give me LOTS OF TREATS for Christmas. How cool is that?!

Between the tree and the message from Santa, this whole Christmas thing is starting to make a little more sense to me. Ok - it still doesn't make any sense at all. But I like it better now that I have my own tree and a promise from a real live video Santa that treats are on the way.

THE WHOLE SANTA THING

I now know one thing for sure: Christmas isn't just about weird leafless trees. It's also about some guy named Santa.

Some of you already knew that. Some of you have bravely sat on a Santas lap to have your picture taken. But not me. I've never really seen a Santa before. Brother Dutch said they invade our neighborhood every year (see photo), but I don't remember last Christmas and this year it rained so no Santas came.

I'm trying really hard to understand Christmas, so yesterday I made the horribly stupid mistake of asking my human to explain the whole Santa thing. I have NO idea what word sounds like 'explain' that means dress-me-up-and-stick-stuff-on-my-head, but instead of explaining Santa, my human... well... you see today's picture.

Warning: if you've never had The Santa Talk with your human, do NOT, under any circumstances, ask questions about Santa. If your human tries to talk to YOU about Santa, run and hide under the nearest piece of furniture and don't come out until you're sure no one's going to dress you up like one.

Anyway. I still don't really understand the whole Christmas thing. Or the Santa thing. And even though I know Santa is supposed to bring presents or cookies or whatever, I kinda liked Christmas better when it was all about a tree.

TOYS FOR TREES?

As soon as we got our weird leafless Delancey Street tree home, my human said we had to decorate it. I didn't really know what that meant and my friend Google didn't exactly help me out:

decorate: to furnish or adorn with something ornamental or becoming; embellish.

Uhm, yeah. Well, it turns out that decorating a tree means you buy it special toys that dogs aren't allowed to play with (technical term: ornaments). Then you stick the toys so high up on the tree that dogs can't reach them (I guess this is the 'embellish'-ing part).

Honestly? Decorating a Christmas tree isn't really much fun if you're a dog. I played with some of the tree's toys when my human was busy embellishing, but playing with tree toys really isn't that much fun either. Especially when you are caught chewing on them and get yelled at.

So far, this whole Christmas thing seems kinda lame. When I mentioned this to my human and she called me a scrooge. No idea what that means, but since humans are sooooo into their Christmas, I guess I'll play along. Maybe they know something about it that I don't?

DELANCEY STREET

I'm not 100% sure what this latest holiday is about, but with all the fuss people are making, it must be a big one.

Even though this is my second Christmas, I was a puppy last time and don't really remember how it works. It seems to have something to do with trees. ANd not just any trees -- weird leafless trees.

In our yard there's a tree that makes lemons and a tree that makes roses, but there aren't any weird leafless ones. So yesterday we went to the local Delancey Street Xmas Tree Lot to buy a new tree. The Delancey Street lot wasn't the closest place to buy our tree, but my human said it's the best.

ME: Uhm, isn't a tree a tree? I mean, they don't even have leaves.
HUMAN: Yeah, but it's not about the tree.

At first I thought she meant Christmas isn't about the tree. And I thought, oh great! Another special-day that seems like it's about one thing but is totally about something else?? I was about to start whining about humans and their confusing holidays... when my human starting talking about Delancey Street.

We're not going to the Delancey Street lot because their trees are special, Puglet. We're going to Delancey Street because Delancey Street is special. They're uhm... kinda like a rescue group. For humans. They help addicts, ex-convicts, and homeless people get a second chance at life.

Wow. Really? I know what it's like to be recycled and get a second chance. I had no idea humans could be recycled too.

Anyway.

All the men at the Delancey Street tree place were suuuuper nice. They pet me and said I was cute and didn't laugh too hard at the stupid deer-ears my human stuck on my head. They even helped us pick out the best weird leafless tree ever.

I still have no idea if Christmas is about the tree or not. But if it is, our Delancey Street tree will definitely make this special-day extrasuperspecial.

BRRRRrrrr!

It's been really cold here lately. Not cold enough for that snow stuff some of you have, but cold enough to make leaves fall off trees. And my human says if it's cold enough to make leaves fall off trees, it's too cold for me to go outside without a sweater.

My new boy-sweater hasn't gotten here yet and I'm tired of being called she because of the girly-sweater. So I put my paw down and said no sweater. Actually, I just ran away when my human tried to put it on me, but I think she got the idea.

Fine, she said. If you're not going to wear a sweater then you're gonna wear a hat.

A hat? Like on my head? Ugh. Wearing something on my head is even worse than wearing a pink girly-sweater and being called she. Since I'd already boycotted the sweater, I tried talking her into letting me wear a scarf instead. No such luck. She said we don't have any dog scarves and I couldn't wear hers because she needed it to stay warm.

So I wore a hat. I don't think it did very much to keep me warm, but loads of people said I looked cute in it so maybe hats aren't so bad after all. They are definitely better than girly-sweaters. If you're not a she, I mean.

GREETINGS FROM PLANET BEST BUY

Yesterday I missed my very first daily post since I started blogging over 8 months ago. And it's all because of my human's stupid new computer.

The stupid new computer (HAL the 4th) was supposed to make my human's life easier. It was supposed to be fast and strong. It was supposed to work hard so she wouldn't have to spend so much time staring at it. But I guess The-computer- people-whose-name-rhymes-with-HELL have a funny idea of what 'easier' means.

In our house, easier does not mean buying four (FOUR!) brand new computers to finally get one that works (sort of). Easier doesn't mean driving across the orange bridge one day and the grey bridge the next to go get these new (broken) computers. It does not mean spending hours and hours on the phone with someone named India who is very nice but has an accent that makes my human's gimpy brain hurt.

So far, the only good thing about our stupid new computer made by The-computer -people-whose-name-rhymes-with-HELL is that my human bought it at a place called Best Buy. We spent A LOT of time at a whole bunch of different Best Buys this week and the Best Buy people were always very nice and helpful. They didn't always get it right, but they tried really hard and that's a good thing.

The Best Buy people didn't give me any cookies or anything, but they did lots of stuff to make my human feel better. They even got The-computer-people-whose- name-rhymes-with-HELL to send a Geek to our house to fix Hal the 4th. Of course The-computer-people-whose-name-rhymes-with-HELL sent Mr. Geek the wrong part so he has to come back next week... but at least it's in his hands now.

Anyway. I don't usually get involved in human stuff, but if anyone's thinking about buying a computer-people-whose-name-rhymes-with-HELL Studio XPS... you've been warned.

If you have to buy anything else, Best Buy seems to understand what easier means. If it doesn't work, they take it back. Again and again and again. No hassle. No problem. Just keep your receipt and tell them I sent you.

MARKETABLE SKILLS

I've been thinking about getting a job for awhile now. That way my human won't have to spend so much time staring at the computer. Or leave us alone for HOURS and then come home smelling like stranger-dogs.

So I asked my friend Google how to find a job. Google said I need something called a resume, which I thought was kinda like a pedigree and I don't have one of those. But my human said a resume is just a list of jobs you've had and things you're good at doing. I've never had a job before, but I am good at a few things:

• eating
• sleeping
• looking cute
• making humans happy
• being a pug
• getting my picture taken
• telling stories

According to Google I don't have many "marketable skills", but my eating expertise could maybe get me a job as a food critic . A food critic? I had no idea you could get paid to eat food. I mean, helllllllo! I'd eat food for free!!

I looked into it and found that food critics do most of their eating in restaurants, so I asked my human to take me to one. She said dogs aren't really allowed in restaurants, but I figured maybe if I wore a sweater or something I could blend in.

And it worked! Sort of.

I made it into the restaurant, was seated at a table and waited for someone to bring me something to eat. I waited. And waited. And waited some more. Lots of people AwWwed and told me I'm SOOOO cute, but no one ever brought me food. How can I become a food critic if I can't get served in restaurants??

Is there any job that pays just to be cute??

TOBEE

I forgot to tell you about the weird thing that happened at Pug Sunday: I met a dog whose smell I recognized. No biggie, right? I mean, we go to Pug Sunday all the time; I'm going to recognize some pug smells.

Well. It was weird because 1) this dog was not a pug and 2) I knew his smell, but I didn't know him. Don't ask me how this is possible because I don't know. His smell has a distinctive hint of green beans (?!?) so it's kinda hard to forget.

But when I asked the mystery dog where I could have smelled him before, he ignored me. I asked him a whole bunch of times but he just kept ignoring me. Like he was trying to keep it a secret or something.

It was kinda frustrating and I started to get a little mad at Mr. Green Beans. That's when my human intervened. She told me the dog's name is Tobee and the reason he wasn't answering my question is because he couldn't hear me asking it. She said Tobee is deaf and deaf means you can't hear questions. Or anything else.

I've met like a gazillion dogs, but I'd never met a deaf dog before. At least not that I know of. I mean, except for his weird green-beany scent, Tobee was just like any other dog. I had no clue he was any different and he didn't seem to know either.

Then I heard my human say lot of deaf puppies have to go to sleep because they can't hear. HUH? I mean, pretty much every dog I know has "selective" hearing. Deaf isn't really much different than that, right? Just more selective. I pretend not to hear things all the time, but no one would ever make me go to sleep because of it.

Anyway. Once I knew Tobee wasn't ignoring me, I stopped being mad at him and we had loads of fun. We shared a stick but he kicked my butt at keep-away. I never did find out how I knew his smell. And I have no idea how my human knows so much about Tobee.

RIDICULOUS CUTENESS

The first Sunday of the month happened again this weekend and you know what that means....

SF PUG SUNDAY!!

It's hard to tell who in our family loves Pug Sunday the most. I love it because, well, I'm a pug and I love everything. Especially other pugs. Brother Dutch really loves it because he gets to be a giant and play King of Pugs. And my human, she loves loves loves Pug Sunday because she likes to take pictures of cuteness (if you haven't noticed).

There is SO much cuteness at Pug Sunday, it hurts, she says.

I don't really understand the part about hurting, but there was a ridiculous amount of extraspecialcuteness at this latest pug fest. I was way too busy getting puggy to do the camera thing, so my human took some pictures of other cute pugs:

I'M A HE

I know you all think I look extrasupercute in my stripey sweater, but everyone else thinks it makes me look like a girl. Brother Dutch swears boys can wear pink, but when I wear the pink stripey sweater out in public all I hear is Ooh, she is SO cute and OoOoh, she is adorable.

Not that there's anything wrong with being a she --- if you're a girl. But I'm a he. A boy. So I told my human I need a boy sweater. No pink. She said the girly-sweater came from a place called Old Navy, so that's where we went to shop for my boy-sweater.

When we got to Old Navy, the place was packed. I've never seen so many people in a store before. My human said they were all there to buy presents for Christmas. I have no idea who Christmas is and don't want to ruin any surprise or anything, but Christmas must be getting a lot of new sweaters because there weren't any left by the time we got there. Lots of ridiculous things to wear on your head, but no sweaters.

My human said she'd order me a new boy-sweater from Old Navy's internet (on sale for $10). Guess I'm stuck with the girly-sweater until it gets here. Just call me Puglette.

SCHOTZ??

I don't know if anyone else noticed the disturbing comment someone left here the other day. It said something about my human taking pictures and handing out cookies and was signed "Your friend Schotz".

This troubled me in a few ways. For one, I don't know a Schotz. I mean, I'm sure we'd be friends if we met because I pretty much love everyone. But I've never met a Schotz before. I don't even know how to pronounce Schotz, or if Schotz is a boy or a girl. So how can he/she be my friend??

The reeeally disturbing part is that this Schotz said my human took his/her picture and handed out cookies. What the ??? Why was my human taking pictures of some stranger-dog? And giving him/her MY cookies??

First there were stranger-dog smells on my human, and now Schotz? You all convinced me that I won't ever be recycled for a new pug, but still. I must get to the bottom of this. And until I do, I'm going to try really hard to be extrasupercute so my human won't take anyone else's picture. Or give away any more of my cookies!!

DOGPARK

Remember when I stalked my human and ended up getting my fur done at that place called Blo? Well, I didn't tell you that on the way there someone smashed into our car. They weren't going fast so nobody got hurt and it wasn't scary or anything, but part of our car died.

The car's been at the car hospital all week getting fixed so my human had to rent a new one. This wouldn't be a big deal except we're not allowed to go in the rent car. Don't ask me why, but it's meant that our usual routine hasn't been happening as usual.

Instead of going on long walks at the beach or one of the big parks, we've been going to a fenced in dogpark that's a few blocks from our house. Brother Dutch said he used to go to the dogpark a lot but I'd never been there (my human says she'd rather walk around than just sit and watch us play).

Anyway. I made lots of new friends at the dogpark. Even though I was a newbie, everyone already knew my name. I've kinda missed running around in wide open spaces, but it's kinda cool how all the humans sit around the dogpark and watch their dogs play. It means there are lots of laps to jump up on. No one seemed to mind me jumping up on them either. I can't get away with doing that anywhere else.

CHILLY

First the sun broke. Now the weather is getting cold.

I know what you're thinking: how cold can a place with palm trees really get? Well, I don't exactly know the numbers, but it's cold enough to wear stuff like hats and sweaters and scarves. Am pretty sure that means it's not warm.

This morning it was so chilly I could see my breath in the air. So I pretended I was a fire-breathing dragon and blew smoke at brother Dutch and my human. That's when my human gave me her scarf. It was supposed to keep me warm, which was supposed to stop my breath from freezing in the air. I guess my human thought giving me a scarf was nicer than telling me to stop blowing my death-breath at everyone (which is what Dutch said).

Is it cold enough for scarves and frozen breath where you live? Or is the sun/weather only broken here in San Francisco??

LET'S BE FRANK

On the way back to the car after walking off my pie, I caught a whiff of something tasty. VERY tasty.

I'd never smelled anything like it in my whole entire life. So fresh and pure and meaty. I begged my human to let me get a closer sniff. She said I could look. And I could smell. But I could not eat.

(sigh)

I agreed to her terms then followed my nose to the source of the scent. Turns out it was coming from this cart thingy. A cart thingy with a picture of a DOG on it? If that's not a sign I should eat something, I don't know what is. I pointed this out to my human:

Hey look! It's food for dogs. Can I just have a taste?? Pleeeeeeeeease?

It's not FOR dogs, Puglet. It IS a dog. A hot dog, she said.

HUH WHAT?!? This totally freaked me out. That really tasty meaty smell was a hot cooked DOG? Who the heck would cook a dog? And who on earth would ever eat one???

I didn't want to stick around to find out. So I made a break for it and ran to the car. When my human caught up to me she was mad. Very mad. But when she saw how scared I was she stopped being mad, gave me a hug and asked what was wrong.

They are cooking dogs. THAT is what's wrong.

Oh Puglet....

My human explained that a hot dog is made out of cow, not dog. I wanted to know why it's called hot dog if it's made out of cow, but she didn't have an answer for that one. So I asked if I could have a taste, y'know - to make sure the main ingredient really was cow.

Nice try, Puglet was all she said.

PIE WEIGHT

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.

PUMPKIN PIE & BEING THANKFUL

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!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm busy waiting to eat pie, so no adventures today.

Back tomorrow....

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!

ME AS A COLLAGE

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!

HOME ALONE

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?

GIANT HEAD & BABY COW PIES

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.

THE STALKER

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!

REEEALLY EARLY

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.

NEW PUG IN THE HOUSE?

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). No bears 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.

MY HUMAN, THE HUSSY

I think my human is cheating on me.

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.

I just don't know what.

NUGGETS

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.