The pugs have been a little depressed this week. It has been raining here since Sunday evening. I’m not talking about a little bit of rain either. It has been pouring hour after hour, day after day. I haven’t been paying too much attention to all the weather details, but I heard the weather lady mention last night that we had 18” of rain since Sunday. That seems like an absurd amount and the northern girl in me keeps thinking, “Could you imagine if this was snow!”
But regardless of how many inches of rain we have had, the pugs are miserable. Three pugs are miserable because every time they need to go out to go potty they get drenched and the fourth pug, who is completely indifferent to the water falling from the sky, is mad because I will not take him for a walk or let him dawdle all morning in the pouring rain. I think having a pug that doesn’t care if he is getting wet is almost as bad as if he were upset that he is getting wet. There doesn’t seem to be a happy medium with the bunch.
The funniest has got to be Luna though. She refuses to walk out the door if it is raining. You must pick her up and carry her across the threshold and if you really want to make it back in the house anytime soon it is in your best interest to put her down in the grass. But as soon as she feels the wet grass on her paws a blank look comes across her face and she appears incapable of processing a thought. Logic would tell her that if you want to get out of the rain, go potty real quick and you will get to go back in the dry house sooner. But, she can’t bring herself to physically move. She just stands there soaking up all the rain drops.
Benjamin is the king of thinking he can hold it until it stops raining. Benny always scratches at the door when he wants to go out. However, I will see him walk over to the door, peak out the glass to see if it is raining and if it is, he will walk away from the door. A minute later he will do the same thing. He is in utter turmoil because he knows he has to go potty, but there is no way he is going to ask to go out in the rain. So, when I go to take him out, he acts like he doesn’t have to go potty. Once I drag him out the door, he makes a mad dash to the grass, does his business and then sprints back to the house. However, he always finds a way to pick up a piece of mulch that is streaming down the driveway as he is running back into the house.
Sol, is probably the smartest of the bunch, because she cuts the wet grass out of the process and just goes potty on the sidewalk. Not ideal, but if it keeps her from going in the house, then I am behind it 100%.
And then there is Henry. Henry knows it is raining and he just doesn’t care. He always starts out like we are going on a normal walk and when I tell him that we aren’t going for a walk because, hey haven’t you noticed, it’s POURING. Then he promptly starts to dilly dally in the front yard. He walks through puddles, smells every blade of grass and just stares out across the lawn. I think he is wondering what he can do to possible get wetter.
So, we are hoping that things will dry up a bit and that the flooding on local roads will subside so that we can do something fun on the upcoming 3 day weekend. We had planned on another canoeing outing on Saturday, but we nixed those plans. I’m thinking the pugs would love to go for a nice, long, dry walk.
The last few times we have been to Publix to get knucklebones for the pugs they have been out. This hasn’t gone over with the pugs very well. Then I remembered that there was a new shop at the farmer’s market that had knucklebones when we were there late last year. So on Saturday, we went to farmer’s market and got lots of fruits, veggies & knucklebones. Turns out that the knucklebones were buy 5 get one free, so of course we went for the deal to have a few extras stashed away. The knucklebones at Publix are nice, but the knucklebones from the farmer’s market were huge! Needless to say the pugs were delighted!
We always get a bone for Sol, but she generally never chews it. Instead, she vacuums up all the little pieces that the other three leave on their towels. But, Saturday, Sol was ready to tackle her very own knucklebone. She worked so hard chewing on that bone that she had to stop and take a nap! Which worked out good because it was time to put the bones away for the night. Benjamin would chew on them forever and I don’t like the pugs to get too much of a good thing in one day. I imagine all that “yummy stuff” they pull off the new bones could really wreak havoc on the digestive system.
Here are some pics of the others going to town chewing.
It might sound odd, but one of the best ways for me to unwind after a hectic day is to toss Cheerios to the pugs. When I first started this, the pugs were kinda like the Bad News Bears. Luna can’t see, so she is pretty much out, Sol has had part of her jaw removed and the boys, well, they were surprisingly bad. Horrible actually.
So when we first started, the pugs were so funny that I would laugh so hard my stomach would hurt. The funniest thing to me was Benny. He pretty much missed every Cheerio thrown at him. So they would bounce off his mouth or his forehead and he would chase after them and eat them. Well, when he started to catch them, he would catch it and then look for one on the floor. It was like he didn’t realize that he caught it.
We would play a little bit each day and I would toss Cheerios to the pugs and hand one to each of the girls. Slowly, the boys got better. Henry progressed much faster than Ben, but now they are both to the point where they catch almost every Cheerio thrown their way.
So here is an exceptionally long, unedited video that has plenty of my annoying commentary of the pugs catching Cheerios. It gets a little boring after a while, but be sure to tune in around 3:40. At that point, I tried to see if Sol could catch a few Cheerios and what do you know, she did great! She missed the first one, but nailed the rest after that. This was the first time I had tried tossing one to Sol and you’ll be able to tell by me excitement in the video just how proud I am of her. Even with part of her jaw removed she can still do it!
Here we have Henry & Luna at the door. If you look closely you will see white marks on the glass just below and to the left of the doorknob. For the record, there is only one pug tall enough to leave nose prints that high up on the door. His name starts with an H and he has perfected the stand against the door and bark method of home protection. Looking forward to your captions in the comments.
On Sunday, we decided to make the most of an overcast day and we took the pugs to the beach. We haven’t been to the beach since we adopted Sol, so I thought it would be fun to see what she thought of the sand and the salty air. The whole trip could have bee a disaster (more to come on that), but we pulled it together and had a really good time. The boys and Luna had fun as always and Sol really seemed to be having a good time as well.
In the evenings, Benjamin & Henry like to bask in the sun on the sofa and keep watch out the front door. Benny is almost always perched on the back of the sofa and Henry makes himself comfortable on the arm rest. Luna gets in on the action too, but she actually sits in front of the door, like you would expect a guard dog to do. No extra comfort for her when she is on duty.
The evenings are usually pretty busy in the neighborhood. A lot of people walking dogs, jogging or riding bikes. There is most definitely a lot more foot traffic and interesting things for the pugs to bark at. I think a huge draw for the pugs though is that they can find the rays from the setting sun in the front of the house. In the mornings they spend their time out back and in the evenings they shift to the front of the house. They are like sunflowers, they always point towards the sun.
While I was snapping pictures the other day, I got a short video of the guard pugs in action. I just love how big Henry’s eyes are in the clip.
