Thank you all so much for all of the amazingly helpful tips on flying with pugs!  We’ve got some smart readers, huh?  I think Brian and I are both starting to feel a little less anxious about this endeavor, thanks to you guys.

As a token of our appreciation, we present to you this newly discovered photograph of a rare and mysterious pug phenomenon – the Bolster Sandwich:

Sid’s dreams of aviation are about to come true!

That’s right!  The Pug Slope team will be putting on their brave faces this holiday season as they zip Sid into a bag, head to a jam-packed airport, remove him from a bag, walk him through security, zip him back into a bag, carry him aboard a plane, and then stow him under the seat in front of them for the duration of a two-hour flight to beautiful Chicago where they’ll be spending the Christmas holiday with Brian’s family!

This is our first time flying with Sid, and we’re pretty sure it’s his first time flying EVER, so we’re trying really hard to not be neurotic about the whole fiasco.  Really hard.  That being said, the brand new Sherpa bag that we ordered from Amazon already came in the mail – we wanted to make sure Sid had enough time to get accustomed to being inside it before taking off.

Sid’s taking his travel-bag training VERY seriously:

Any advice for staying calm while flying with a pug?  We’re kinda freaking out… Tell us it’s all going to be okay!

Now that the barf-tastic events of this Thanksgiving are behind us, Sid can barely contain his excitement for his favorite holiday – Christmas!

So, if you’ve been following the blog for a while, you know that Sid has an uncanny ability to disrupt America’s most thankful of holidays with absurdly gross health emergencies.

First there was the great kennel cough eruption of Thanksgiving 2009, during which he literally came down with kennel cough on Thanksgiving afternoon as Brian and I were preparing to head out for a feast at a friend’s house in LA.  We had to ditch our plans and spend the entire day at the emergency vet’s, quarantined while Sid coughed up yellow watery goo.  Keep in mind that Sid has NEVER been to a kennel.  We’re assuming the “pug in the plastic bubble” caught kennel cough from a communal water bowl at the snack shack in Griffith Park.

Then there was the great Atopica eruption of Thanksgiving 2010, in which Sid re-developed his blergy, vom-tastic reaction to the only effective non-steroidal medication available for his allergies.  This was a day or two before Thanksgiving, but the nastiness of this event stayed with us throughout the holiday weekend, much like the hydrating bubble of saline that the emergency vet injected under the skin on Sid’s back.

Well, this year’s Thanksgiving started off without a hitch.  Sid was extra healthy in the days leading up to the holiday – Brian had been waking up every morning to take him to off-leash hours, and Sid was being extra sweet and cuddly throughout the day – perhaps that should’ve been our first indication that something was wrong.  We had Thanksgiving dinner at my brother and sister-in-law’s apartment in Crown Heights, just north of Prospect Park, and Sid’s Grammy Grace was there to give him extra lovin’ and treats.  As a holiday surprise, Sid got an extra-large Kong bone filled with peanut butter and venison sausage, and we let Grammy Grace feed him a dollop of whipped cream.

That night, we let a very contented Sid sleep in the big bed and he purred / snored all night long.  The next morning, he had extra snuggle time with Brian on the sofa, before Brian and I headed out at noon for a nerd-errific afternoon at the American Museum of Natural History.  We had plans to bring Sid over to the home of Miss Timothy Buttons later that evening – her grandparents were in town, so it was going to be an excellent photo-op for the blog.

Totally unrelated yet totally amazing photo of Timothy Buttons

We got home at six pm, with a half an hour to feed Sid his dinner before bringing him over to see T-Buttz and her fam.

Now, bear in mind that we have a live web-cam that streams to our iPhones so we can check on Sid while we’re out of the house. We’d literally just checked the Sid-Cam fifteen minutes before we returned to our apartment, as the F-train passed through the short elevated portion of it’s route, just before our stop.  All was fine.  Or so we thought…

What follows is not an exaggeration.

The pungent odor of regurgitated sausage that hit our olfactory nerves as we opened the door was our first indication that something was wrong.

We noticed a small pile of “business” on the hardwood floor.

Then we turned on the overhead light…

Our ENTIRE apartment was like a cross between a MURDER SCENE, a SEWER EXPLOSION, and the FLOOR OF THE GRAVITRON AFTER A HOT DAY AT THE STATE FAIR.

Blood, diarrhea, vomit – EVERYWHERE.

And by everywhere, I mean, everywhere in our apartment that is NOT viewable on the Sid-Cam.  It’s like he knows the boundaries of the frame that the camera is filming.

Our bed, for instance, is not viewable on the Sid-Cam.  That’s right.  Our bed.

But the mess in our apartment didn’t matter, because Sid was SICK.  He was shaking so much he was vibrating, and he looked gaunt and lethargic.

I called our vet in a panic.  Our non-emergency vet normally closes at 6:30pm on Fridays, but they said they’d stay open until we could get Sid down there.  They’re amazing.

Now, one of the fun things about living in Brooklyn is that everything’s walkable!  You don’t need a car!

Which means, of course, in an emergency, everything is “runnable” because you don’t have time to wait for a car service to come pick you up.

So, we wrapped Sid in a flannel housecoat, scooped him up, and RAN seven blocks to our vet.

He was still vibrating when we got to the vet’s.  They gave him an IV of saline and an anti-nausea injection and some anti-biotics.  Sid, who normally squirms and flails like a bull at a rodeo when the vet tries to touch him, didn’t even try to fight.  They took some blood and stool samples to test, and then sent us home with our raggedy little guy with instructions to keep an eye on him and keep him hydrated.

When we got home, we set up his crate, lined it with wee-wee pads that we had bought for our hurricane preparedness kit, and popped him inside with his water bowl and an old potato toy.  Then we got to cleaning.  (Er, Brian got to cleaning… I got to ordering pizza delivery and then I got to Googling keywords like “Dog Bloody Diarrhea” and “Dog Bowel Explosion Vomit Leaky Anus.” We all have our specific roles that we fill).  Our floors were due for a good scrubbing, I guess, and every rug and linen in our apartment got a good soaking, as well.  Apparently Brian did an amazing job, because later that evening Timothy’s family popped over so that her grandparents could finally meet their grandpug’s much-older boyfriend, and they said the place didn’t smell at all like regurgitated sausage (of course, they could’ve just been trying to be polite – they’re mid-westerners). Timothy stayed at home, just in case Sid was contagious, and also because I don’t think Sid could’ve dealt with the excitement of having his lady love around.   Sid slept in his crate through most of their visit – I pulled him out for a quick hello, but he was still vibrating a bit, poor guy.

He slept in his crate all night long, and when I opened the door to his crate the following morning, he just looked at me and then laid his head back down on his potato.

The vet called later that morning with the lab results – no parasites, nothing serious. Probably just a stomach bug that he picked up at the park.  Thankfully he’d be back to normal in due time.

And by noon, Sid was back to his old ways, trying to steal Brian’s pretzels with a total disregard for authority.

Just another whirlwind 24-hours of holiday fun here at the Pug Slope Headquarters!

Thank you again to Dr. Quim and his staff at the Prospect Park Animal Clinic for taking such great care of our little guy!

Sid has asked us to let him rest all morning and afternoon so that he can have as much energy as possible for the festivities later today. There may be a sweet potato in his future (of which I imagine he’s dreaming of right now).

We wish you all a food-and-treat-filled Thanksgiving!

After our photo shoot in the park this past weekend, Sid and I strolled over to the lake in order to find a good spot to sit down, relax, and enjoy the amazing fall weather.

We found a nice bench and watched some runners that were participating in the Brooklyn Marathon that happened to be taking place while we were there. But this didn’t last long. No, Sid did not start charging at the packs of runners, but instead made a bee-line for the lake.

If you thought he was just chasing after the ducks like a normal dog, you’d be wrong. Remember: Sid is not normal (to put it bluntly).

 If you thought he was trying to catch a fish, you’d also be wrong. There was not a fish to be seen.

For those of you that checked the box next to “Clearly he was just obsessively digging at the water like a doofus” consider yourself experts in the field of O.P.A. (Obsessive Pug Analysis).

“Um, what’s that you were you sayin’, Dad? Was it about me?”

For some video evidence of Sid’s obsession with pools of water, check out this post from July.

The leaves are changing color and the air is becoming brisk, which means it’s time to update our masthead!

This past weekend in NY really encapsulated all the amazingness of fall. The weather was ideal for a nice stroll through the park and we figured we might as well tie in a photo shoot with our favorite little flat-faced pal.

It went something like this:

“Okay, really, Sid? We don’t need all the ‘tude right out of the gate. As we detailed in your contract, like all your other shoots, this one will also end with treats – I promise. Lose the flap flip, man.”

“Yes! That’s more like it. We want to show everyone that pugs are majestic, thoughtful creatures that ponder the important questions of the universe: What is the meaning of life? What does it mean to be ‘pug’? Why must dinner be served at 5 pm and not 3 pm?”

“Hello?! Are you tuning out? You can’t tell me you’re getting bored already. Well, maybe a new location will inspire you more.”

“Yeah, this looks much better. These leaves are great. Um, hey, Sid…over here…No, that’s not Timothy Buttons, it’s a squirrel. Look at the camera, buddy.”

“Okay, that’s a little better. You’re just a tad too aloof, though. We needing something a little less brooding and more  front-page-of-cuteoverload.com, follow?”

“Now you’re on the trolley! The head tilt is definitely a keeper. Can you give me just a little more variety to work with…”

“BOOYAH! That’s the stuff. No one can resist a back-and-forth head tilt. If we turn those two photos into an animated gif, we might have the next internet meme on our hands. Let’s just try to ease it back a little bit, though, I mean, technically you’re like a 42-year old man and I don’t want your head popping off its axis.”

“PERFECT-O! Way to go, man. Here’s to another job well done. There is a fully-loaded kong treat bone waiting at home with your name on it.”

So how do you guys like the new fall masthead?