GIANT FUR SAUSAGES!

Y'know how I asked everyone to donate their unwanted fur to help soak up oil in the Gulf? Well, I thought you might want to see how fur goes from being stuff our humans can't stand, to something really useful. I mean, the whole shedding-to-help-the-Gulf idea sounded a little crazy to me. Good, but kinda crazy.

Well. Yesterday I got a text from my man Stubby about a "Boom BBQ to help The Gulf" right here in San Francisco. Have to admit I had no idea what a 'boom' was when I got Stubby's message. But the BBQ part sounded great, so I talked my human into going.

It turns out "booms" are tubes of fur/hair that soak up spilled oil and keep it from spreading. Before our spare fur can do its thing to save the planet, it needs to be stuffed into a tube. Kinda like a great big sausage - only made of fur/hair and recycled panty hoses.

I didn't get to eat any BBQ, but it was really cool to see boxes of spare fur & hair get turned into Gulf-saving fur sausages. There was even a Pug standing by, in case of a sudden fur shortage (hi Triton!).

We're picking up bags of fur from our local groomer later today and me & Dutch have been shedding overtime to make our donation really count. If you have fur (or hair) to spare and would like to help clean up oil in The Gulf, please visit matteroftrust.org for info on how to donate your extra fluff.

FLATNESS

I know it's been, like, ages since my flat self has been around. And we're sad & sorry about that. Except maybe Dutch - he's kinda freaked out by Flat Puglet.

Well. The good news is that Flattie is finally ready to make a comeback. Our kitchen has been like a Flattie factory the past few days! After much printing, cutting and flattenting, my human (the Flattie-making machine) is *finally* done making a fresh batch of Flatties! A small herd of 23 Flat Puglets are finally ready to leave the nest.

Thanks to all the Green Pug publicity (I think?) we have 10 new Flat Puglet sponsors and added 67(!) hosts to the waiting list. Yippie!!

The bad news is there are still A LOT of Flatties from the first batch who are missing in action. Because we now have waaay more waiting hosts than flatties in action, me and Dutch coughed up (uh, I mean donated) some more cookie money to make another bunch of Flat Puglets to send out. So if you've been sitting on a Flattie for awhile, pleeeease do somethign with him soon!

The other bad news is my human has about 10 Flattie visits to add to the website. Between my Green self, my Flat self, my Daily self and whatever else she does all day - things just got a little swamped. But - now that the latest batch of Flatties are finished, she can get back to adding your visits to the website.

So, if you've sent in pictures, please don't think we've forgotten about you!!! We haven't and I can't wait to show everyone what my flat self did in your town :)

Oh yeah, and one more bit of good news. Even though Green Pug totally got in the way of Flat Puglet's mission, he did bring like 10,000 people to the Flat Puglet website. And helped save the planet at the same time!

NOT COMPATIBLE?

You're probably wondering where all the ridiculously cute pictures from my weekend with Frank are. Well, we didn't really get a chance to take any. Because we kinda broke Frank.

Not broke, like broke in half. But more like broken, as in no longer functioning.

On the first night, things were going great. As planned, we played non-stop for hours. And there's really no way to explain how two pugs play, so here's a video of me and Frank getting puggy:



The next day we headed over the bridge to where the cows live. I was all excited to take Frank on our cow hike, but when we got there, my human said we wouldn't be hiking because Frank and hiking "are not compatible". So, we just played in the creek and snacked on grass while my human read a book. It wasn't as much fun as hiking, but we still had a good time.

I had no idea what "not compatible with hiking" meant - until Frank refused to walk and my human had to carry him back to the car. Even though we only had to walk, like, half a mile!

After the carrying came the puking. Apparently poor Frank isn't compatible with grass eating either. Because he puked. A LOT. And the puking made him feel so sick HE DIDN'T EAT. Can you believe that?? A pug skipping dinner? And then breakfast the next day? I didn't think such a thing was possible.

Luckily, Frank's people were only gone for a few days because the not-eating thing totally freaked us out. We met up with them at PugSunday and poor Frank spent the whole time curled up on my human's lap. He's feeling better now (after getting one last puke out on his dad's computer keyboard) and I can't wait until my human goes away next month because I'm going to stay at Frank's house!

I'VE BEEN COLLAGED!

Remember awhile ago when I told you about the artist Sam Price? The one who turns little bits of paper into dogs? Well, yesterday I got the best surprise ever: an email from Sam with a picture of ME attached to it. A picture of me, as a collage.

Yup. Sam took hundreds of recycled magazine clippings, added a whole bunch of artisticness, and created a one-of-a-kind, handmade collage of yours truly. He said a picture of me "spoke to him in a unique way" and that my personality "makes an artist's job an easy one". Is that the biggest compliment you've ever heard, or what?

The picture that inspired Sam to collage me.

I have no idea how Sam is able to turn old magazines into a pug, but seeing his work really makes me wish I had thumbs. You can see more of Sam's work (and envy his thumbs even more) at his website, www.mydogcollage.com.

CALLING ALL SHEDDERS!

Unless you live under a rock, you've probably heard something about the giant oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Y'know, the one that's spewing tons of nasty black stuff into the ocean? Nasty black stuff that's going to hurt all the birds and fishes and turtles who call the ocean home.

If you've never met oil before, let me tell you - the stuff is nasty with a capital N. We had an oil leak here in San Francisco once when a boat crashed into a bridge. It was a tiny leak compared to what's happening in the Gulf, but it caused some serious problems. I wasn't around yet, but brother Dutch told me all about the globs of oil that washed up on our beaches, stuck to his fur and made him feel really sick when he tied to lick it off.

Dutch was lucky. My human scrubbed him with Dawn to remove the oil and they didn't go back to the beach until the oil was gone. But what about all the ocean creatures who live in and around the Gulf? They can't just go home and take a bath, then not go to the beach for awhile.

I feel very sad for the ocean creatures.

But my man Stubby - the greenest pug on the planet - came up with a way to do more than just feel sad about the oil spill. We can put our crazy shedding abilities to good use and donate our fur to help soak up the oil. Yup - you heard me. That stuff our humans vacuum up, lint-roll off, and curse at can help save The Gulf!

Dutch's fur alone could probably soak up the entire oil spill (all that stuff on the floor is his fluff) but just in case it's not enough, we're asking anyone with fur to spare to donate it. We asked our local groomers to send in their fur and are asking my human's hair lady, Courtney, to send in her salon's spare hair.

TO LEARN MORE & DONATE YOUR UNWANTED FUR
Visit matteroftrust.org. Please ask your local groomers & human hair people to donate too. Hair weighs practically nothing so it doesn't cost much to mail and it's only going to be swept up and thrown away anyway. I mean, why throw away something than can help save birds, fishes, or turtles?

Here's a video that explains the whole deal: