Hey everyone! I’m sorry that Sid and I haven’t posted much this month. November just flew by!

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and got stuffed on good food last weekend. Sid and I took a trip out to the suburbs to hang with my family during the long weekend.

As would be expected, Sid was a huge help in the kitchen. He made sure the floor stayed immaculately clean!

We took a nice walk in the forest preserve with my mom and her newly-adopted Havenese, Peaches!

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get a good picture of Sid and Peaches together, but they teamed up to make sure every square inch of the forest was thoroughly sniffed.

We also got to spend some time with my two nieces. They are huge fans of Sid and the feeling appeared to be mutual.

He doesn’t roll over for a belly rub for just anybody!

We had a relaxing time escaping the city for a bit and spending time with family and eating some tasty food. Hope your Thanksgiving was the same!

Sid and I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday. As expected, Sid was spoiled with all kinds of tasty scraps and got lots of extra belly rubs from his grand-pug-rents.

This was an exciting Thanksgiving for us because it was the first time that Sid and I got to ride together on the Metra train to visit my family out in the suburbs.

You may remember, shortly after moving to Chicago, I discovered that pets in carriers were allowed on all Chicagoland public transit systems except the Metra trains that link the city with the suburbs. I met another person who had just started a petition as she wanted to bring her small dog with her to events in the city. So for the past couple years we worked together to get more and more signatures on the petition. We were able to get articles written about the issue in local news sources, we attended meetings of the Metra board and spoke during the public comments section, and this summer they finally implemented a pilot program to allow pets in carriers on one of the lines during the weekends. It was a success so they expanded the program to all lines during the weekends and holidays. I’m hopeful that by the end of the year the permanent policy will allow pets in carriers on all lines at any time, just like all the other public transit systems.

Sid is a traveling champ and once he gets in his red travel bag, he has no trouble kicking back and relaxing. I always provide him with an ample dose of treats while he’s in his bag, so of course he often doesn’t want to get out of the bag when we arrive at our destination. Most other travelers don’t even notice that I have a dog with me, and those that do ask me all about him and “ooo” and “awww” the whole time (most pugs are used to, and expect, this kind of adoration).

So this Thanksgiving we were especially thankful for all the Pets on Metra supporters, including all you lovely Pug Slopers that signed the petition, and the wonderful folks at Metra that made our dream a reality!

We hope everyone had a terrific Thanksgiving. Sid and I journeyed out to the suburbs and got to hang out with my parents for a few days. Sid had an unbelievable time. He spent most of his waking hours in the kitchen, attached to the ankles of anybody that happened to be in there.

I lost count as to the number of snacks/tid-bits/morsels he scored based solely on his proximity. Not only did he immediately snatch up anything that accidentally fell to the ground (sometimes even BEFORE it hit the ground), but he also was GIVEN pieces of food just because he was in the right place (at the feet of the food preppers) at the right time (ALL THE TIME).

Based on this experience, he told me he’s “ready for a new career”. I thought I’d at least hear him out, even though I’m still unclear what his current career actually is, or if he even has one. I mean, he seems to just sleep most of the day.

Anyway, he desires to get a job at a restaurant as a “Prep Chef Assistant”. Preferably at a restaurant that serves a lot of dishes requiring chopped baby carrots, Fuji apples, or sweet potatoes. He’d also prefer that his superior, the actual Prep Chef, not be that great at bending over to pick things up off  the kitchen floor. OK. I see where he’s going with this.

So if any of you know any job openings that would fit the bill, let us know. Sid would probably need to be paid in cash since he’s under 16 years old. Oh, also the restaurant manager would have to be ok with having a stray pug hair or two in like 99% of their dishes.

This current cold snap hasn’t let up on Chicago and it’s due to continue over the upcoming holiday weekend.

We wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving and hope those of you in cold climates (like ours) stay nice and warm. Sid will probably be camped out at his favorite spot at Pug Slope HQ: his overstuffed bolstered bed in the sunniest room, right next to the big radiator. He’s a genius I tell ya.

Sid and I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We were lucky enough to have a four-day weekend so the two of us journeyed to my parent’s house in the suburbs.

Where is the turkey I was promised?

It’s amazing how spread out everything is once you leave the city. Sid enjoyed all the new smells, the ample supply of shrubs to pee upon, and all the toys that he commandeered from his canine cousins, Sweetie and Ellie.

He even got to eat a few bites of turkey and thankfully it did not exacerbate his allergies. I don’t know if he actually got a chance to really taste the flavor of the turkey though as the pieces instantly slid down his throat in the same manner that a fish slides down a penguin’s gullet. I told him to “enjoy” and “savor” this special treat but I think my message went in one floppy ear and out the other.

What special treats or snacks did you all get to eat this Thanksgiving?

Please leave any and all leftovers in my bed. Thank you.

-Love,
Sid.

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!