Merrylog

Oh, the puglet has become a fussy puglet on her morning walks. While she seems to be settling into the routine and beginning to get more comfortable that she’s on her own five weekdays every week, she is definitely trying every tack in the book to get us to stay home with her, and her newest trick is I Won’t Poop You Can’t Make Me.

A trick, mind you, normally reserved for the days when it’s twenty below freezing and she’s hoping we’ve hidden all the warm grassy areas somewhere.

Especially the last few work mornings, she’ll walk forever if I let her, and never once circle around with even a hint that she’s going to give it up. Gotta love the cute lil’miss for trying! :)

One more wobble shot, because I had so many I couldn’t choose. Isn’t this awesome? My favorite part is the eyes closed in deep concentration, and the lovely neck ruff so many of you pointed out in her last photo.

This shot, to me, is pure Merry. It is how she has been since she was a wee pup and first learned to play fetch. Her “dad” and I have marvelled over the years at how she doesn’t manage to completely shake her brains loose/bash her poor little brains in with the violence of her shaking the ball!

I’m always fascinated by how the camera can catch the ball in “wobble” mode: not perfectly round, since Merry is in mid-shake, the ball stretches out and becomes a different shape for a split second.

‘Course, I also love playing with my girl. Don’t you wish you could play, too?

Love, love, love her expression in this one. :)

The princess seems to be adjusting okay to her new schedule. She has had a couple of upsets – tossing her cookies first thing in the morning, a couple of days – that I’m sure will even out once she has more time to adjust and the excitement of this brand-new schedule calms down somewhat.

Do I miss the spudling? Heck, yes. Every day. But I try to make sure that we have good walk and rubdown times together in the morning, and at least one play session in the evening (Hubby Dearest walks the princess in the evening for me, isn’t he sweet?). And the bonus is that I’m loving the new job and all the folks I work with are great, which makes it easier!

Oh, how she’s been enjoying playing fetch this spring. Outdoors or in, the nicer weather just seems to have infected her and she’s up for a game of fetch any time. That little pink tongue? Slays me. Every time. It’s like a whole big bowl of cute. I can’t resist.

The puglet continues to adjust well to her new daytime routine. Next week I’ll be able to tell better how she’s doing, since this week might be just “a temporary new thing”; I imagine she’ll start to get the idea it’s permanent sometime next week. She DOES greet me most excitedly when I get home, which is cool and new – I was always around before, so she didn’t really make much of a fuss when I went away for an hour or two then came home. :)

I sure couldn’t, when she did this to me yesterday morning. I hopped up on the bed and gave her good snuggles for a few minutes before dragging her cute little pugness out for a walk. :)

Folks I still have a great selection of photos to show you from a shoot we did last week, but haven’t gotten the images processed – will share later this weekend or first thing next week!

Oh, the princess does not like getting up early with her Mom to go for walks before work. (Can’t blame her – she gradually over the years went from sleeping in to 9 to sleeping in till noon.) However, she’s so darned cute first thing in the morning when she’s all sleepy and warm that it melts my heart. :)

Survived the first day – and am on to the next!

You know, training is important. Dogs, for all that we love to dress them up and carry them around and talk to them in baby talk, are not little people capable of understanding a huge range of speech. They are animals. They have different ways of thinking and different needs and it’s important to make sure they get what they need.

WHY, then, do so few people actually seem to crack a book, a web site, a tutorial of any kind on how to train a dog? THIS is why we have violent and aggressive dogs.

Case in point: last night I’m walking the pug. We come across a guy with an adorable looking Basset Hound on leash. I call over to him, say hello, and ask if the Basset is friendly so we can come over and say hi. He says “sure!”. (I know you know what’s coming.) We walk over, the Basset suddenly lunges teeth snarling and biting and I barely get Merry back from him in time. Poor little blind girl.

Does dude apologize for his horribly-mannered dog or for saying he was “friendly”? Nooo. WORSE, does he control the dog and correct him – with a click, with a stern NO, with anything? Noooo. Instead he looks down at the Basset and in a baby voice says to him, “Oh, baby, what’s wrong? Why are you acting like that?”

Grr. Folks, it’s very simple. Dogs don’t understand language. Tone is everything. High pitched baby voice = praise. Low firm stern voice = reprimand. If you talk to your violent/barking dog in ANYTHING but a low, stern voice with hopefully a big NO attached to it, they are going to think you are praising them for protecting you and will do it MORE often.

Which is what I told the guy. With heavy digust in my voice. Sheez, find the time and read a good book about training already. Here’s the one I read when I got Merry. Invaluable.

And with that snarky note to start the week (sorry, folks, but poor training’s a big pet peeve of mine), I wish you a happy day! First day at my new job woo!

There has been a LOT of fetch this week in the pug’s life, yes, in part to assuage my owner’s guilt in leaving her behind all day starting Monday. But the pug has had a blast with it and that never feels like a wrong thing to do.

I took some hysterical photos this morning that I’ll share next week. Can’t wait for everyone to see them!

Have a super weekend, all, and…. wish me luck! Job starts Monday!

We took a little pug & mom time yesterday around lunchtime – went to a nearby park, sat on a bench in the shade of some trees, enjoyed the breeze and cuddled together. Not that we ever did a *lot* of park time cuddling while I was working from home – particularly the last few years, I’ve been just too busy working most days to take time out midday and go hang out in a park with the pug – but it’s really hitting me the past couple of days that our workday time is limited now, and that starting Monday it will be a whole new world for us both.

I’m such a sentimental dork. But I know the pug is picking up on my sentimentality. She’s been so barky the past few days, getting into a groove where she’ll be sitting right in front of me barking at me till I pay her direct attention. It should be an interesting first few weeks. :)

Thanks to everyone for their kind words yesterday. Please don’t assume the Merrylog is going away permanently and that this is its death throes – there’s many possibilities, and I wouldn’t give up on us just yet. :) While I may not be able to post daily, at the tender age of almost-9, the pug still has many years left of antics I’ll likely need to share *somewhere*!