Saturday, April 4, 2009

Flashback

This week’s flashback: Run Puggies, Run

I love it when the pugs get to running around like this.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Happy Birthday, Henry!

Happy Birthday, Henry!  Today Henry turns 7 years old.  It has always been hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that Henry is younger than Benny.  From day one, Henry has always played the big brother role because, let’s face it, Benny has always been Baby Benny.  But, they are only a week apart in age, so I guess it really could go either way.

Henry is by far the most adventurous of the four pugs.  I remember when it was just the boys and we would take them on hikes through the woods, Henry would never stay on the trail.  He was always straying off to the left or the right to see what he could discover.  Which totally paid off for him the day he stumbled upon a whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich just laying on the ground.  It probably is his biggest find to date, but his finders resume isn’t too shabby as he has really come across some crazy things over the years.

For me personally, Henry fills a special part in my life.  He is my big dog in a nice small package.  You know how some people are drawn to small dogs and some love big dogs?  I have always found myself stuck in the middle somewhere.  A part of me loves larger breed dogs and would love to do all the rough and tumble big dog things.  But, another part of me loves just being able to scoop up one of the pugs and carry them around with ease.  I think it is really one of the reasons I love the pug breed so much.  Pugs are small, but they have a lot of big dog traits, hence the “multum in parvo” description.

But, for me, Henry is just the perfect combination of big dog attitude in a small dog body.  He loves to swim, likes to pretend he is a hood ornament when we ride in the car and has an all around adventuresome outlook on life.  I will never forget the time we took the dogs to a dog park in Annapolis, Maryland.  It was our first time visiting the dog park and a few of the regulars told us about a nice little walk that led to a spot that looked out on the Chesapeake Bay.  They also told us about a little section of beach that was used as a unofficial dog beach.  Eager to take in the view of the Bay, we set out with the pugs.  After we spent a few minutes looking out at the water, we walked over to the dog beach.  It was a windy day and the water was very choppy, but the beach was still full of labs and appropriately enough at least 5 Chesapeake Bay Retrievers all fetching sticks or balls from the water.

After seeing how choppy the water was we decided that we weren’t going to encourage the pugs to take a swim.  We figured the pugs would have fun just running along the beach.  We made our way down the narrow trail that led to the beach and when we hit the sand we unleashed the pugs.  Benny ran around in the sand and Henry took off running into the choppy Chesapeake Bay after a few retrievers.  My first instinct was to intervene and not let him into the water, but I didn’t want to be the nervous mom so I let him go to see what he was going to do.  Out he went and he was immediately bobbing up and down in the very choppy water.  A few times, waves went right up over his head, but he didn’t care.  He was doing his best to keep up with all the bigger dogs.  He only made a few trips out and back before he was tuckered out, but that didn’t matter much to me.  It was quite a site to see a pug paling around with labs and retrievers in the Chesapeake Bay.

Besides being the most adventurous, Henry is also the most trusting of all the pugs.  Not that the other pugs are nervous around us, but Henry just has this notion that no matter what the circumstances we will not fail him.  For instance, he will just leap right out of the truck at you, fully expecting you to catch him.  And if he is leery of something, he will do it if you tell him because he has this trust that we would never steer him wrong.  It is one of the greatest feelings in the world and one of the things that fuels his adventuresome spirit.

So, in honor of Hank’s 7th birthday, here are a few of my favorite Henry moments shared on the blog:

• Things I learned from my pug Henry
• Footage from the Yellow Submarine
• Lifeguard
• The Pug Tug
• Ready to be served
• Improvising

Also, to celebrate the founding pug’s birthday, we are offering free shipping at H. Doodle on all orders through the weekend (4/3/09 - 4/5/09).  Just use the coupon code henry7 during checkout.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

The Early Pug Gets the Cheerios

Some mornings, after I have gotten out of bed to get my shower, Benny slinks part of the way out from under the covers and makes himself comfortable on my pillow.  To see him snoring away in my spot always makes me laugh.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty Food

Cupid the cat has the honor of eating on the counter of the little bar section of the kitchen.  She gets this distinction because she is the only four legged creature in the house that does not devour her meal in less than 5 minutes.  Instead, she likes to savor her meal and come back and nibble on it throughout the day.  I think her main reason for doing this is that it drives Benjamin crazy!  Benny will be walking by the bar stools and he will suddenly catch a whiff of the tasty cat morsels and he immediately does an about face.  He will stand there gazing upward and whine at the cat’s food all the while trying to will it to come to him.

Sometimes, I will catch the cat sitting off in the distance watching and listening to Benny throw his tantrum.  I think it is a highlight of her day.  She wakes up early, prowls around the pool deck in the screen enclosure, toys with some geckos, eats a little bit of her breakfast and then waits for the pug with the red harness to throw a tantrum over her food.  I think it is a bit of kitty prank.  It’s sorta like every day is April Fools day for her.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Caption This #101

This photo made me laugh when I saw it flash by as I was pulling photos from the camera.  I don’t like to bias the captions by adding my own two cents when posting a Caption This photo, but I can’t help myself with this one.  My first thought when I saw this picture was, “‘Cuz this is Thriller, Thriller nights…”

Looking forward to your captions in the comments.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Intuition

The pugs always wake up at an obscene hour for breakfast.  And by pugs I mean Benjamin.  Benny usually starts sometime between 5am and 6am jumping around wanting to eat.  I usually hold him off until it is time to get up for work, but on the weekends this doesn’t really work too well.  So I get up at his normal feeding time, take them out in the yard to go potty, give them their breakfast and then sneak back to bed for a few more hours of sleep.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to tags jingling, glanced at the clock and saw that it said 5:12am.  My immediate thought was 5am on a Sunday, Benny, you got to be kidding me!  So I grumbled something to him to let him know that he is crazy and that he needed to go back to bed.  But my grumbling was not heeded and I heard a pug dancing around not taking no for an answer.  I pried my eyes open to see what was going on and I saw little Luna staring back at me.  While Luna is always quick to join in on Benny’s breakfast crusade, she is never the one to start it.

Thinking that Luna might just need to go potty, I got up and took her to the yard.  Benny and Henry joined us and I scooped up Sol so that I only needed to make one trip to the yard in my stupor.  Luna wasn’t in much of a hurry to go potty, so I wasn’t sure why she was dancing around the bed so early.  As we were coming back into the house, all the pugs made a mad dash for the kitchen and while it went against my principles to feed them so early in the morning I did it anyway because I certainly didn’t want to get up to do it about an hour later.  After the pugs ate, we all crawled back into bed and as soon as my head hit the pillow, I heard a clap a thunder and then the sound of rain beating on the roof.  It was pouring.  At that point, I remembered they were calling for pretty bad thunder storms to move through the area in the early morning hours.  I laid in bed listening to the rain and the thunder.  Luna snuggled up beside me and was quite pleased with herself.  By getting up when she did she saved her paws from getting wet!

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Fashion Forward

Benjamin sporting his Birthday Boy Bandana.  Why the serious look?  He heard someone in the kitchen.  Could they be making him a special birthday treat?