Merrylog

The days leading up to the wedding, the big day itself, and the aftermath day of packing, shopping, retrieving a pug from my folks, dropping off tuxes, and driving 4 hours to a cottage left hubby and I feeling very withered. Honestly, I slept most of the first two days of our honeymoon – sleeping in, several naps during the day, in bed by midnight. The puglet, too, spent a lot of time recuperating from the crazy week before. Of course, she looks MUCH cuter than we do when sleeping and lazing around. :)

Gravel roads may be the pits (pardon the pun) to drive on, but they’re pure yummy goodness when it comes to photography, they add such texture. Isn’t she pretty?

See it bigger on Flickr.

P.S. – in yesterday’s photo, that’s not my veil; it’s Merry’s wedding outfit which had a tutu. :)

We’re back! The wedding was lovely, and the honeymoon a little slice of relaxing heaven in an otherwise crazy life. Honestly, where can I sign up for one of those six week honeymoons? That sounds about right to me.

Merry charmed all our guests, of course, but called it a night early. Being blind and navigating around 40-50 sets of legs, different furniture set ups, all the excitement and noise… that’s bound to tire out any pug, and from about 8pm on she mostly nestled in her bed accepting pats, hugs, the occasional treat, and lots of pictures taken by our guests. Though there was some fetch in there a few times later in the evening – my girl does love her fetch. :)

We haven’t seen any photos of the big day yet but I do have some taken by my stepdaughter of the reception – hence, this photo of the princess – but will share more when I have them. :) Meanwhile, steel yourselves for vacation photos starting tomorrow!

Well, folks, here it is before we even realized it was here: the last post before wedded bliss occurs two days hence.

(Can’t believe I just used hence in a sentence. How old fashioned of me.)

Merry is excited of course, as are we – though truthfully, the thing I’m looking forward to especially is waking up LATE (like, noon??) next to my husband on Sunday in our honeymoon cottage. After the way the past two months have been, that extra sleep and lazy Sunday morningness is looking miiiighty good right now.

I’m SO glad you all enjoyed the q&a over the past two days and not to worry, I know I have many more q’s to answer and will set about doing so on my return (Monday September 28th!). I love being able to hold this back-and-forth with all of you, to be able to really provide the type of posts and information you’re all interested in reading. :)

Hours till wedding, as of this post: 47! Gah!

Yesterday I started a Q&A (which I’ll keep ongoing – so keep asking those questions!) inviting all of you to ask your deepest, darkest, most secret questions about Merry, Pampered Puppy, photography, or (gasp!) me. I’ll keep tackling these questions daily until all of you run out of questions – even after I return from the honeymoon, so get your querying juices flowing! Er, that sounded gross. But you know what I mean!

Micaela asked: We are new pug owners (although our baby is 6 months old next week!) and at the moment our princess Molly is, shall we say…psycho! Just wondering, was Merry always the picture of perfect manners as she appears today, or did she grow into her lady-like behaviour? I’m hoping you’ll reply with the latter so that I know there is still hope! :)

HA! Oh, this is fantastic. Opportunity to tell one of my fave Merry stories!

The truth is the princess was a crazygirl, too, when I first got her. (She now sleeps in till noon if I let her!) I got her when she was 4 months old and I got very little sleep or downtime for the first two months. She had SOOOOOOOOOO much energy! It was crazy. My vet recommended playing and walking with her as much as possible to poop her out so I could get sleep at night and also protect my belongings from chewing, which I was determined to do. So we got a lot of exercise those first 3-4 months. Our walks consisted of 1 hour in the morning, 20 min midday (I would take the subway home for lunch, walk her for 1/2 hour, dump her new kibble, and then go back to work for the rest of the day), 1 hour at dinnertime and another hour at bedtime (at least).

In between, we would play and train and anything to use up those massive packets of energy she had in spades. Even so, I had to essentially follow her everywhere or she’d be getting into trouble the minute I had my back turned.

No kidding: I lost twenty pounds the first three months I had her. I was just going ALL the time. I was exhausted. But hey, thinner thighs! :)

Around her sixth month, I discovered the secret that allowed me to build Pampered Puppy in my spare time in the evenings and also, you know, just allow me to collapse in front of the boob tube occasionally to relax: Kongs. Not just Kongs, but what you put inside, too: cheese.

Here’s what you do. You know how when you leave a block of cheddar (real cheddar please, not velveeta, ew) unwrapped in the fridge, it turns hard, like a brick? Do that. On purpose. Now cut off a big chunk that you can shove as tightly as possible into the Kong. Set out a big towel (they will salivate like CRAZY all over this and trust me, you want the towel) and place the Kong on it and let your pug go to town. Bam. You’ve just bought yourself an hour of sweet, sweet, uninterrupted downtime with no pug to monitor.

I know people say: use soft cheese. Use peanut butter. Oh please. Pugs are WAY smarter than that. They’ll lick through all of that in five minutes flat and then look at you licking their lips and asking for more… before they go and chew on something else in the house. Or dig their little pug butts into some corner or under some furniture. Or harass the cat.

So yes, Micaela, there is hope. :) I found Kongs, long walks and a loooooot of training (sit-stay-lay down drills, for 10 minutes at a time, with food as motivator, 3 to 4 times daily) kept Merry mostly in check – WAY more than a lot of pugs I’ve met since. It was a lot of work! But completely worth it. I could bring her anywhere even as a puppy – people’s houses, puppy play groups – and she was very well behaved, if still mondo hyper.

However, she did blissfully start slowing down a bit at age 2 and then I was finally able to start sleeping in a bit on Saturdays again. :) They do eventually slow down, hang in there! (Ironically, it will be that crazy puppyness you’ll miss most once they do grow out of it.)

We have answered many questions in our FAQ, though it’s woefully out of date. But really, answering questions is usually a pretty informal job around here – if you post a question in the comments, I’ll occasionally answer in the comments or in the following days in the body of my next Merrylog post.

But I sense that there are a LOT more questions out there, which leads me to wondering: WHY haven’t I answered them? Sadly, it’s ’cause my psychic abilities bled out of my ears sometime around the time I started planning this wedding (FOUR more sleeps!).

So….. is there anything you’d like to know – about Merry, about pugs, about photography or Pampered Puppy? (Or, perish the squeamish thought… me?). Have at it. Leave your questions in the comments or, if you’re shy, email them to angie@pamperedpuppy.com. I’ll answer the questions in upcoming posts over the next couple of days. It’ll help you get to know us a little better, learn a little something, and it will help to keep me distracted which is a Good Thing, trust me. :)

If you’ve read (or seen) The Devil Wears Prada, or watched Sex in the City, odds are you’re familiar with the (Vogue, but really they all have them) fashion closet. It’s the hub of a fashion magazine and where all the latest styles are available. We have one of our own at Pampered Puppy that we use for Merrylog and Merryvaluations shoots, shoots for other uses (for the designers/calendars/desktops), as well as for product testing. It’s not as impressive as Vogue’s, mind you. ;)

Just some of what you’ll find in the Pampered Puppy closet:

1. Accessories – scarves, hats, boots and shoes and sunglasses.
2. T-shirts
3. Heavy fall/light winter dog coats
4. Dog rain coats
5. Black, brown and metallic dog collars
6. Blue, green and purple dog collars
7. Pink, red and orange dog collars
8. Dog toys
9. Dog beds
10. Christmas-themed dog toys
11. Pantsuits and fall dog coats
12. Leashes (all hanging in behind the clothing)
13. Hoodies and dog sweaters
14. Dog dresses and couture gowns
15. New Merryvaluations waiting for review
16. Christmas-themed dog clothing
17. Dog jewelry (necklaces, charms and ID tags)
18. Dog carriers
19. Dog bowls and feeders

I had such lovely responses to last month’s post about what Merry was wearing to the wedding that I promoted it in our last Pampered Puppy newsletter. And WOW the responses! So many folks wrote in to comment about Merry’s outfit and my upcoming nuptials, it was heartwarming and wonderful. I even received several emails from couture/formal pooch wear designers and retailers giving me the “aw shucks” because if they’d known, they could have designed or had designed for Merry a custom couture gown for the occasion.

*laughs* It’s such a strange life I lead! I am incredibly blessed to have such wonderful readers and business relationships.

But honestly, Merry has enough couture. In fact, we were originally planning to have Merry wear one of her existing formal gowns – NINE of them, ahem – featured behind her in this photo. But when the simpler One Lucky Dog Couture tutu dress showed up on our doorstep, it seemed a nice way to go. And it was lovely. It also had one other major advantage:

It meant I could maybe be dressed more elegantly than the pug. For once, in our entire lives, I could have a nicer outfit. *laughs* Is that wrong?

However, I’m sure with her gorgeous eyes, big personality and FABULOUS blue tutu, she’ll still end up stealing my thunder. :)

I did notice though that we almost have enough formal gowns to make an entire YEAR’s worth of couture photos of the pug. What say you? Yay? Nay? (For 2010, we’ll have our annual Merrylog calendar – it should be done soon – but I was thinking for next year, it might be fun to ALSO do a formalwear Merry calendar!)

Love, love, love the feet in the air as she turns, still running, after the sneaky ball and howling, all at the same time! *laughs* I have a crazy pug. Yes I do. You know it too.

On a side note, 10 days, folks. TEN days till the wedding. I think my brain is pudding. But not the fun English kind with fruit and lots of booze. Sadly.

Usually, when I’m shooting product, I’m focusing more on the product and worrying a little less about the cuteness of Merry. But this shot – while not terribly descriptive of the bed – I had to take because she looked so cute and confused on her hyper zebra print bed. Keep your eyes peeled for this review in our October 1 issue!

Also, I’m glad you all liked the Advice from a Blind Pug image, and I’m working on others to follow. Suggestions always welcome! I love to hear from you guys! (It’s always a relief to know I’m not posting these out into nowhereland where nobody reads them.)

See it bigger on Flickr. You know you want to.