LATE NIGHT VISITOR

Last night at approximately 2:03 we had a little visitor in our kitchen. The Visitor woke me up, and I woke Dutch up and we both woke my human up. She wasn't exactly happy about this.

Me and Dutch could totally hear and smell The Visitor in the kitchen all the way from the bedroom. And it smelled scary. I wanted Dutch to go first, he wanted me to go first. So we both just stood on the bed and barked. Of course my human couldn't hear or smell anything, so she wasn't exactly happy about this either.

After about 5 minutes of our best barking and growling, my human finally stopped telling us to shut up, got out of bed and turned on a light in the hallway. And there was The Visitor, standing there in the kitchen doorway wearing a mask, just... staring at us.

I wasn't really afraid or anything, but I was kinda too afraid to move because we've never had a masked Visitor (or any strange visitor) in our kitchen at 2 in the morning. And The Visitor was bigger than me and smelled scary. Dutch hid behind my human and growled. My human kinda screeched a little and grabbed our collars. The Visitor stared at us for a few very long seconds, then ran out the dog door.

Of course I wanted to chase after The Visitor's masked, trespassing be-hind and totally go poodle, but my human said no way. I argued, but Dutch didn't. My human locked the dog door shut and mumbled something about raccoons in the hood and no going poodle and rabies. I'm not 100% sure what she meant, and she was kinda grumpy about being awake in the middle of the night so I didn't ask.

I guess maybe The Visitor was a raccoon?? Anyone here have raccoon experience?

DEAR PUGLET?

You know how I get a lot of emails asking me questions and stuff? Well, I've been thinking about making 'Ask Puglet' or 'Dear Puglet' a regular feature. Or a not-so-regular feature, depending on how many questions I get asked.

I really like getting emails, and my human has this cute little mailbox thing I can totally pose with, but Dutch says I'm not exactly qualified to give out advice. Even with Google backing me up, I guess there are some problems I don't know really know how to solve.

Example
A friend of mine (let's call her Vivian) has been getting kinda pooped on by someone she used to be friends with (let's call the pooper Poohead). I'm pretty sure it's because Poohead borrowed money from Vivian to pay for a trip to the vet and either doesn't want to pay it back or can't, so she decided to just stop being friends with Vivian instead.

She stopped responding to Vivian's emails and phone calls and even flaked on a one-on-one playdate without even calling to say she wasn't coming. On top of all that, she's also been saying some untrue, very un-friendly things to other people about Vivian.

How poopy is that?!?

Pret-ty poopy if you ask me. Vivian isn't worried or upset about the money part. I don't think she's upset about any of it - but I am! I totally want to Go Poodle on Poohead, because it's just wrong to treat someone so bad. Especially someone who helped you in a time of need. My gut says no one poops on MY friend and gets away with it. But my conscience (aka, my human) says some people can be poopy sometimes and there's nothing I can do to fix that.

Still. If I got a 'Dear Puglet' from Vivian about this particular situation, I'd probably tell her to Go Poodle on Poohead for being such a... poohead. Do you think this is good or bad advice? Does it make me seem more (or less) qualified to solve the problems of innocent friends and strangers?

CRACKBALL

I know a lot of pugs aren't really into fetching. But I also know a lot of pugs here aren't pugs. Or even dogs. But you don't really need to be a fetcher to like playing with the toy I'm about to tell you about. But you *do* need a human who likes to shop because these suckers are getting kinda hard to find.

So here it is, my new favorite toy/addiction: The Crackball.

Technically, it's called a Flexa Foam ball. And it's made by some company called Hartz. They used to only come in this crazy rainbow color, which is I think why they didn't sell very well and got discontinued. Dutch LOVED the rainbow balls (of course) and The Man bought a huge box of them for him when he heard they were going to stop making them. We still have a few left, but they are all Dutch-sized.

I never had a crackball of my own, and now they are kinda hard to find.

But Miley's mom, who's a better shopper than my human, was able to find some crackballs at a store called Nugget (!) and also on the internet. She got a mini non-rainbow one for me and it is the COOLEST thing ever. It totally drives Dutch nuts that I have my own crackball now, and that makes it even more fun :)

I know the christmas thing will be happening again, so if you're looking for a cool new toy - tell your human to start looking for crackballs. Like, now.

Here's a video of the BIG, Dutch sized crackball. As you can see, big crackballs and pugs don't mix. At least not in water. Click to biggify if you want to see me look stupid trying to fetch a ball in water.

185 lb PUG

Since Friday's Freeze Frame was all about my ridiculously cute baby self, I thought it'd be cool to go big today. Like big big. Like, ginormous big. 185lb big.

185 lb big (and Jimmying!)

My mega-self's name is Flash and I met him at the beach yesterday before heading over to Pug Sunday. And I guess he's really a mastiff and not a 185lb pug, but he looks like a pug to me (a huge, long nosed, straight tailed pug!). Google says that's because pugs kinda come from mastiffs, however that works.

Flash was superfun to play with, but it was even more fun to watch him play with Dutch. We kinda ganged up on him. Hee hee. Dutch tried to act all cool, but you could tell he was a lit-tle freaked out by the mega-me (I'm guessing a 185lb pug is probably Dutch's worst nightmare).

My human always tells people that pugs are only little on the outside. I never really understood what that meant until I heard her tell Flash's dad that inside, I'm the same size as Flash. And I think that means HUGE.

FFF: baby me

I'm the big little one.

I have no idea how my human forgot she had these pictures of me, but that's what I heard her tell Bellatrix's mom last night. Her exact words?

I must have looked at these before, but I really don't remember them.

Don't ask me how you can look at ridiculously cute baby pictures of your one and only pug... then completely FORGET you ever saw them. But I guess these things can happen to gimpy-brained people.

Ok, honestly - I don't really remember these pictures either. And I'm in them. My first human took the pictures before I was recycled and sent them to my now human so she could see how cute I used to be.

I don't think I've changed very much, do you?