Tomorrow, the newest Rescue Pug arrives
at Dragonfly Cottage. His name is Sampson...
How could you resist that sweet
little face. He's 7 years old...
I am so excited. I've just come back from the little pet store down the road that I love and bought 2 bags of finch food, 2 different kinds of water conditioner that I've almost run out of for my 5 beta fish, and new food and water bowls for Babs and Sampson. Babs had a makeshift food and water bowl here but I got new ones I like better for both pugs. And then I -- which only a smitten mother owned by a pug would do -- bought the ridiculously priced magazine special for pugs. It was $10. I couldn't afford it and I wouldn't leave without it. I have already purchased nearly every book on pugs that exist on amazon.com where fortunately you can get them used for a song.
And speaking of songs I got so excited in the car on the way back I started singing a well known hymn, substituting (As I'm sure it was meant to be, only a simple typo passed down through the generations...) PUG for whatever other word had been mistakenly put in it's place. I shall put the correct word, PUG, in, and put the word commonly and of course mistakenly used in brackets. This hymn has often been used in churches and even for funerals, but truly it was meant to be a Pug Celebration song, used most especially when a beloved Pug has found his or her real and true home.
Not to hold you in suspense any longer, I shall now present the lyrics, and please feel free to sing along. I shall be doing so as well as tapping my toe in my outrageously fabulous lime green Crocs! And by the way, we -- the puglings and doglings and I -- all like the Louis Armstrong version the best.
"Oh When The Pugs Come Marching In..."
(Penned somewhere back in time, corrected
for posterity's sake by Maitri Libellule, in
the year of Babs and Sampson...)
We are traveling in the footsteps
Of those who’ve gone before
But we’ll all be reunited
On a new and sunlit shore
Oh when the Pugs [saints] go marching in
When the Pugs [saints] go marching in
Oh Lord I want to be in that number
When the Pugs [saints] go marching in...
(And so on and so forth. You get the drift...)
To backtrack a bit (still tapping toe and humming...) the reason I bought the pug special magazine was because there is an indepth article on how to clean crevices and unusual places that pugs have that other dogs seem not to. I had Babs a full month when someone, not even a pug person, casually mentioned that she had a friend who cleaned her pug's nose crease routinely because they got, well, pug nose gunk in there. I checked. I tried to clean. Babs seems to have an almost non-existant nose and there was no smell or gunk. Just after this someone else told me that you can pop a pug's eye out!!! if you try too hard to clean out the crease. Their eyes are very large and sensitive and easy to, well, you know. The last thing I need are pug eyes popping out all over tarnation. I mean really. It made me go all funny feeling inside and Henry, my beloved grey parrot and constant companion, had to fly for the smelling salts. I still don't feel quite right.
And then, just when you've begun to pat yourself on the back for the new kid in town (so far, that would have been Babs, until tomorrow when Sampson arrives...) settling in so well, and stopped worrying about she and the resident dog, my beloved Moe, a lab-doby mix about 150 x the size of Babs, getting into a fracas, I came home to something worse. They are in cahoots!
Moe has had a very odd habit ever since we moved into this townhouse 5 1/2 years ago. He has always been, and I kid you not, a saint of a dog. Never causes any trouble, never destroys things, just the best boy in the world. I rarely leave my house but a couple of years ago I started leaving 2 afternoons a week, for say, maybe 4 hours, to babysit my grandbaby, and when I came home, well, I don't begin to know what he did or how he did it, but his food and water bowls would be all over the kitchen with food and water everywhere. He NEVER does this when I am home or if he is only left a short time while I run for groceries or something fairly quick. Today I was gone for only a very short time. However...
I just got home from the abovementioned petshop to find that not only Moe, but innocent little Babs (Uh-huh, yea, right, whatever....) had BOTH toppled their food and water dishes everwhere making the most godawful mess in the kitchen. I stood shellshocked. I caught them in the act. They both looked up at me somewhere between fake innocent and truly guilty. They both kind of looked at each other and at me and were so earnest I had to keep from laughing. I said in my best stern "mommy's not so happy" voice. "Shame on you two!" and shushed them out of the kitchen while I cleaned up a sea of water, and soggy food everywhere. If anyone out there has any clue why they might do this, I'd like to know. Where is Cesar Millan when you need him? (I worship the man. I am renting all the seasons available and immersing myself in Millan-ology and I have his book, Cesar's Way.) All I've got to say is that Moe has led poor little Babs down the trodden path and God Help Us when I leave the three of them alone for a few hours to watch my grandbaby on Monday.
But really, it's a small price to pay for such joy. And they do provide so much joy. It was all I could do not to get Sampson's name tag made at the store but I don't know what color his collar is. Babs came with a pink rhinestone collar, perfect for the movie star pug that she is, so I got her a pink, heart shaped tag that says Babs, and my phone number. I also got her a round pink movie star bed...
Truly, Mae West would have died to be that sexy. I almost bought a bed for Sampson today but I figured out I'd best get to meet him first. You see the above is Babs' second bed. The first one was a very nice bed but one of those that are sort of like a nest with sides. Plenty big for her but she didn't like being balled up in it. She likes to STRETCH OUT. So Sampson will get his bed when he gets here and I can ask him what kind of sleeping accomodations he prefers. Moe is truly not particular, but he mostly prefers the couch...
And I'm not complaining about a single thing now because truly, we just had a moment of grace handed down from the heavens about 30 minutes ago. It has been raining all day and Herself (Babs) and Himself (Moe) do not like to go out in the rain. Babs went "Ooof ooof oof," her tiny pugling bark, and Moe let out with his big lab-doby bark, and I translate, "You better get us out fast while it's not raining or you can clean it up in here." I whipped out the leashes, snapped them on so fast I made their heads spin, and went lurching out the door in my lime green clodhopper Crocs, looking quite a sight, and we went for a walk where they both did their #1 and #2 and barely made it back in the house when it started to rain again and now it is full out storming. If that wasn't a moment of grace, I don't know what was.
In the midst of the above walk-between-rains, my ratty caftan blowing in the breeze over my big green shoes and my hair standing up straight from having gone somewhat grotesquely awry when I was mopping up and cleaning the floor, and dancing about with a jolly black giant of a dog on one side and a little black nibblet of a dog on the other, I prayed that the crew from Candid Camera or America's Funniest Home Videos wouldn't jump out of the bushes somewhere and get a picture. The dogs looked alright. I, however, was quite a different story.
So now it's dark out and storming mightily. Babs is sound asleep, Moe is panting heavily behind me (he is terrfied of storms), and Henry is here on my arm where he always is, supervising my writing and editing along the way...
It is now time to put all the birds to bed -- that would be ten with 2 new dove babies about to hatch -- and curl up to watch a movie and work on the Haute Couture Pugwear I am designing some of which will help Mid-Atlantic Pug Rescue and the rest will help support my ever growing rescues at the cottage. Henry is kind of jealous. He said, "I never saw you making Designer Parrotwear when you got me." And I said,"Show me a person that designs Parrotwear and can actually get it ON the parrot and I'll show you a person with their arms ripped off and their eyes gouged out." He kind of rolled his eyes and said, "Well, there is that." Yes, there is that.
So on to nightly chores we go, and I am wishing all of you the very best wherever you are. And I am eyeing my shoebox sized kitchen which by this time tomorrow will have 3 food and 3 water bowls in it and thinking when I go to babysit on Monday things will be rather grim in there. I'm just hoping Sampson can teach these two hooligans some manners.
Feathers and Fur Forever,
Maitri and the whole Dragonfly Cottage crew...
How could you resist that sweet
little face. He's 7 years old...
I am so excited. I've just come back from the little pet store down the road that I love and bought 2 bags of finch food, 2 different kinds of water conditioner that I've almost run out of for my 5 beta fish, and new food and water bowls for Babs and Sampson. Babs had a makeshift food and water bowl here but I got new ones I like better for both pugs. And then I -- which only a smitten mother owned by a pug would do -- bought the ridiculously priced magazine special for pugs. It was $10. I couldn't afford it and I wouldn't leave without it. I have already purchased nearly every book on pugs that exist on amazon.com where fortunately you can get them used for a song.
And speaking of songs I got so excited in the car on the way back I started singing a well known hymn, substituting (As I'm sure it was meant to be, only a simple typo passed down through the generations...) PUG for whatever other word had been mistakenly put in it's place. I shall put the correct word, PUG, in, and put the word commonly and of course mistakenly used in brackets. This hymn has often been used in churches and even for funerals, but truly it was meant to be a Pug Celebration song, used most especially when a beloved Pug has found his or her real and true home.
Not to hold you in suspense any longer, I shall now present the lyrics, and please feel free to sing along. I shall be doing so as well as tapping my toe in my outrageously fabulous lime green Crocs! And by the way, we -- the puglings and doglings and I -- all like the Louis Armstrong version the best.
"Oh When The Pugs Come Marching In..."
(Penned somewhere back in time, corrected
for posterity's sake by Maitri Libellule, in
the year of Babs and Sampson...)
We are traveling in the footsteps
Of those who’ve gone before
But we’ll all be reunited
On a new and sunlit shore
Oh when the Pugs [saints] go marching in
When the Pugs [saints] go marching in
Oh Lord I want to be in that number
When the Pugs [saints] go marching in...
(And so on and so forth. You get the drift...)
To backtrack a bit (still tapping toe and humming...) the reason I bought the pug special magazine was because there is an indepth article on how to clean crevices and unusual places that pugs have that other dogs seem not to. I had Babs a full month when someone, not even a pug person, casually mentioned that she had a friend who cleaned her pug's nose crease routinely because they got, well, pug nose gunk in there. I checked. I tried to clean. Babs seems to have an almost non-existant nose and there was no smell or gunk. Just after this someone else told me that you can pop a pug's eye out!!! if you try too hard to clean out the crease. Their eyes are very large and sensitive and easy to, well, you know. The last thing I need are pug eyes popping out all over tarnation. I mean really. It made me go all funny feeling inside and Henry, my beloved grey parrot and constant companion, had to fly for the smelling salts. I still don't feel quite right.
And then, just when you've begun to pat yourself on the back for the new kid in town (so far, that would have been Babs, until tomorrow when Sampson arrives...) settling in so well, and stopped worrying about she and the resident dog, my beloved Moe, a lab-doby mix about 150 x the size of Babs, getting into a fracas, I came home to something worse. They are in cahoots!
Moe has had a very odd habit ever since we moved into this townhouse 5 1/2 years ago. He has always been, and I kid you not, a saint of a dog. Never causes any trouble, never destroys things, just the best boy in the world. I rarely leave my house but a couple of years ago I started leaving 2 afternoons a week, for say, maybe 4 hours, to babysit my grandbaby, and when I came home, well, I don't begin to know what he did or how he did it, but his food and water bowls would be all over the kitchen with food and water everywhere. He NEVER does this when I am home or if he is only left a short time while I run for groceries or something fairly quick. Today I was gone for only a very short time. However...
I just got home from the abovementioned petshop to find that not only Moe, but innocent little Babs (Uh-huh, yea, right, whatever....) had BOTH toppled their food and water dishes everwhere making the most godawful mess in the kitchen. I stood shellshocked. I caught them in the act. They both looked up at me somewhere between fake innocent and truly guilty. They both kind of looked at each other and at me and were so earnest I had to keep from laughing. I said in my best stern "mommy's not so happy" voice. "Shame on you two!" and shushed them out of the kitchen while I cleaned up a sea of water, and soggy food everywhere. If anyone out there has any clue why they might do this, I'd like to know. Where is Cesar Millan when you need him? (I worship the man. I am renting all the seasons available and immersing myself in Millan-ology and I have his book, Cesar's Way.) All I've got to say is that Moe has led poor little Babs down the trodden path and God Help Us when I leave the three of them alone for a few hours to watch my grandbaby on Monday.
But really, it's a small price to pay for such joy. And they do provide so much joy. It was all I could do not to get Sampson's name tag made at the store but I don't know what color his collar is. Babs came with a pink rhinestone collar, perfect for the movie star pug that she is, so I got her a pink, heart shaped tag that says Babs, and my phone number. I also got her a round pink movie star bed...
Truly, Mae West would have died to be that sexy. I almost bought a bed for Sampson today but I figured out I'd best get to meet him first. You see the above is Babs' second bed. The first one was a very nice bed but one of those that are sort of like a nest with sides. Plenty big for her but she didn't like being balled up in it. She likes to STRETCH OUT. So Sampson will get his bed when he gets here and I can ask him what kind of sleeping accomodations he prefers. Moe is truly not particular, but he mostly prefers the couch...
And I'm not complaining about a single thing now because truly, we just had a moment of grace handed down from the heavens about 30 minutes ago. It has been raining all day and Herself (Babs) and Himself (Moe) do not like to go out in the rain. Babs went "Ooof ooof oof," her tiny pugling bark, and Moe let out with his big lab-doby bark, and I translate, "You better get us out fast while it's not raining or you can clean it up in here." I whipped out the leashes, snapped them on so fast I made their heads spin, and went lurching out the door in my lime green clodhopper Crocs, looking quite a sight, and we went for a walk where they both did their #1 and #2 and barely made it back in the house when it started to rain again and now it is full out storming. If that wasn't a moment of grace, I don't know what was.
In the midst of the above walk-between-rains, my ratty caftan blowing in the breeze over my big green shoes and my hair standing up straight from having gone somewhat grotesquely awry when I was mopping up and cleaning the floor, and dancing about with a jolly black giant of a dog on one side and a little black nibblet of a dog on the other, I prayed that the crew from Candid Camera or America's Funniest Home Videos wouldn't jump out of the bushes somewhere and get a picture. The dogs looked alright. I, however, was quite a different story.
So now it's dark out and storming mightily. Babs is sound asleep, Moe is panting heavily behind me (he is terrfied of storms), and Henry is here on my arm where he always is, supervising my writing and editing along the way...
It is now time to put all the birds to bed -- that would be ten with 2 new dove babies about to hatch -- and curl up to watch a movie and work on the Haute Couture Pugwear I am designing some of which will help Mid-Atlantic Pug Rescue and the rest will help support my ever growing rescues at the cottage. Henry is kind of jealous. He said, "I never saw you making Designer Parrotwear when you got me." And I said,"Show me a person that designs Parrotwear and can actually get it ON the parrot and I'll show you a person with their arms ripped off and their eyes gouged out." He kind of rolled his eyes and said, "Well, there is that." Yes, there is that.
So on to nightly chores we go, and I am wishing all of you the very best wherever you are. And I am eyeing my shoebox sized kitchen which by this time tomorrow will have 3 food and 3 water bowls in it and thinking when I go to babysit on Monday things will be rather grim in there. I'm just hoping Sampson can teach these two hooligans some manners.
Feathers and Fur Forever,
Maitri and the whole Dragonfly Cottage crew...
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