Well HELLO my friends!

It’s Sid here today with you. I’m so excited that it’s Friday and the sun is shining. It’s gonna be a great weekend, I just know it! I’m ready to get outside and see (and sniff) what’s going on in this great big world.

Maybe I’ll go down to the lake, or to the River Park, or to Winnemac Park…hmmm so many options. I just gotta wait for my dad to finish up his work…

PFFFFFT! Hello, Dad?! What do I need to do to get some attention around here? The work day is done, let’s go for a walk, man!

I hope you all get up to some fun adventures this weekend!

When Sid and I went for our morning walk the other day, we made a slight detour. I know from the photo above, with the retro lockers, space-age chair, and sparkly floor, that one might think were in a bowling alley. Unfortunately for Sid, were not going bowling but were instead going for something else that starts with the letter “B”.

So, um, like where do I rent my shoes?

The weather here for the past couple of weeks had been very wet and that, coupled with some major road and sewer construction underway in our neighborhood, had led to large swaths of mud and puddles of water the size of small lakes. Our walks took us right through the heart of this mucky territory daily. In summary: the pug was filthy.

This explains why we were not rolling strikes but were instead squeezing bottles of pug shampoo. The caked-on mud required a bit more shampoo than normal, but soon our flat-faced wonder was squeaky-clean and smelling of coconuts.

Now, Sid, don’t forget to dry off!

In case you didn’t know, we are currently at the apex of the Semi-Annual Pug Shed-A-Thon. I’m sure you other pug owners can relate to the moment when you realize: no, a crew of carpet installers did not creep into your home in the wee hours of the night and lay down some wall-to-wall beige-colored shag carpeting; IT IS ALL PUG FUR! And yes, one of those minuscule hairs did just stab you in that tender part of your foot like a tiny tan needle. OUCH!

And this is all from a SINGLE PUG, remember. I don’t know how you multi-pug people do it. I suppose at some point you just embrace the fur-floor life and accept that you can never have people over to your house ever again.

Well, I thought I might try to nip things in the bud before they got too out of control, so I got out a new bag for the vacuum cleaner and put that poor machine to the ultimate test. After some serious sucking, I was able to see the oak floorboards once again. How lovely!

Although not everyone would agree with me. Whenever I tidy up the apartment, Sid gets in a rebellious streak and tries to undo everything I tried to accomplish. I mean, according to him, all those individual pug furs are strategically placed like a work of art. So this time he decided it would be a perfect time to rummage around in his toy bin and extract every toy – including some he hadn’t played with in months or possibly years.

I tried to help him at first as I thought maybe he was just hunting after a certain toy. Nope. He just wanted to put all the toys back where he likes them: scattered around the entire living room. And soon to be covered once more in a layer of pug fuzz.

Hi, my wonderful friends!

The other day I was out for a stroll though a little neighborhood park in Andersonville that I frequently enjoy when I came across a very welcome sign of Spring.

My dad told me the bright brilliant flowers were crocuses, and they are usually the second sign of Spring’s approach (the first being the Robins, and they’ve already been back for a couple weeks now).

I got up really close to the flowers to smell them and then all of a sudden one was in mouth and I was chewing it.

What did you expect? You can’t fight your instincts, right?

Mmmmmmm. Spring.

Last evening in Chicago the clouds were making unusual formations and changing the light in surreal ways. It looked as if there were purple mountains off in the distance. Sid thought we were back in California.

I couldn’t resist going outside to Winnemac Park to check it out, and of course I wanted to bring Sid with to try and get some images of him with such an incredible backdrop. The lighting made everything look dramatic.

There was even a sun-shower at one point. It’s always a weird experience to have rain drizzling down while the sun is shining and half the sky is still clear bright blue.

P.S. Sid and I would like to thank you for all the positive thoughts and good juju you sent us in regard to his little back tweak fiasco. He is totally back to his normal self so it must have just been a fluke thing which is a big relief for us both!

Hey guys! Sid with you today.

Sorry I’ve been away for a bit longer than usual. Life had been humming along pretty normally here at Pug Slope HQ until Saturday morning at 4am when I awoke abruptly from my sleep due to a pain in my back and neck area. It came and went suddenly. My Dad bolted up to see what was the matter and said I was just sitting on the bed frozen, like a pug statue. It was because I was afraid if I moved I might get another jolt.

He took me outside because he thought it might have been gas or something but I did my business like normal and then felt fine and plopped right back to bed.

The next day I just couldn’t get comfortable. No sharp pains or anything but I just kept sitting on the edge of my bed instead of nestling down like I usually do. I was eating fine (you know something is SERIOUSLY wrong when a pug stops eating!) and had no problems walking or anything, but I was restless. In the early evening, since I wasn’t really improving, my Dad loaded me up into the rental car and drove me to the emergency vet.

I’m sure many of you have been to a place that looked JUST LIKE THIS! I tend to get into hyper/nervous mode at the vet’s office (especially the EMERGENCY vet’s office) so I was pacing around, panting, and evading humans by scurrying under chairs. Notice the sad tail. Luckily, the humans there ended up being very nice and were gentle to me.

The vet lady checked me out and all my vitals looked ok. She adjusted my head and worked her fingers on my back to see if it caused me any discomfort, but I didn’t feel any jolts like I did at 4am, which was good. She suspected I just tweaked my back or neck somehow (Maybe it was that bad dream I had where the grocery store ran out of baby carrots!). She gave my dad a vial of some “pug happy pills” that are supposed to help me with any discomfort for the next few days.

I do feel much better today and have been able to squish into my bed like normal, so it sounds like my back is untweaking itself. I was even able to flatten out on the floor!

Please send me a little good pug juju if you can spare to make sure my back stays in its normal UNTWEAKED state. In fact let’s never mention that awful T word again and instead focus on the good T word (the one that ends with “reat”).

Sid read about John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s famous Bed-In and now he told me he’s doing the same thing. Although instead of demanding an end to war, he’s demanding an end to freezing cold walks.

I think I’m going to join him as this is definitely one cause we can both get behind.

We hope everyone has a wonderful weekend (in bed perhaps).