Earlier in the month, Sid and I went camping yet again. I know, it seems we can’t get enough of it this year! This time our destination was Turkey Run State Park in Indiana. Joining us along for the adventure was Sid’s grandma (my Mom).

The last time we were all at Turkey Run was two years ago, again right around Sid’s Birthday, and we stayed in a rustic camping cabin. This year, since the weather was so ideal, we opted for the tent experience. Lucky for us, it was warm and sunny the whole time.

After we got our campsite set up, and Sid took inventory of our firewood supplies, we hit some of the lovely trails within the park.

Sid may be twelve years old but he’s still pretty athletic (at least when he chooses to be).

We enjoyed just sitting around and relaxing at our campsite. It was really quiet and serene and the smell and cracking and of the campfire put us at ease.

We hit up a couple trails the next day as well since that is one of the highlights of this lovely state park. And once again Sid showed us what an adventurer he is.

Well, until he decided to take a break mid-hike. I guess I couldn’t blame him as I was a bit tired by then, too!

On our last day, Sid was reluctant to get out of bed.

I guess he had overdone it a bit on previous hikes and was not in the mood to walk anymore. So I came up with a solution:

Sid was super snug and comfortable in the backpack. At one point he even dozed off and started snoring! On the trails that day we saw dozens of tiny frogs. They would dive into the water as soon as you’d get close, but I did manage to get close enough to this guy for a photo op before he took off.

After the last trail, we had a picnic lunch and then it was time to pack up the tent, the camping supplies, and the pug – and head back to the city!

Let me start by saying that most of the time my dad is an okay dude, but he can also be a total bozo. Well, this weekend he must have been in bozo-mode because somehow he only managed to snap TWO photos of all the crazy adventures that occurred. So you’ll have to use your imagination to fill in the rest. Actually that might be better because in your imagination there’s like unlimited baby carrots, so you go ahead and imagine that first. OMP, all those baby carrots! Ok, now back to imagining the weekend adventures of Sid the Pug.

Here’s what went down:

First, my dad got a rental car because we were going to be visiting my dad’s sister in the ‘burbs (it was her B-day this weekend). I love me a good road trip and this one, while not quite on par with a multi-day cross-country journey (which I’ve done TWICE now) this was still pretty fun.

In order to prevent my luxurious fawn pug fur from getting all over the black interior of the car, dad made me ride in my travel bag – which I didn’t mind one bit. I’ve ridden practically everywhere in that thing (buses, planes, trains, and even IKEA – more about that last one in a minute). It’s a little tricky getting your head propped up in the most ideal way (why there is no bolster inside the bag is beyond my comprehension), but after attempting like 15 different positions I found one that worked.

When we arrived in the ‘burbs, I got to go for a long walk with dad and my grandma in Bemis Woods. The weather was amazing – there was snow on the ground, the sun was shining brightly, and the temperature was mild. Even though we hiked for like an hour and a half, bozo only managed to get one photo:

After the hike, I took a nap while dad, my aunt, and everyone else all went out to dinner. I was a little ticked that they didn’t bring me along so I took a poop inside the house (that’ll learn ’em not to bring me home leftovers!).

Dad and I started on our journey home but made a quick detour at a huge building called IKEA. I’m actually kinda glad there aren’t any photos from this place because it was WEIRD and kinda freaked me out! They don’t technically allow dogs inside so my dad thought he’d be covert and bring me inside in my travel bag since I guess it looks just like some normal bag that humans carry around their human junk in.

There must have been thousands of people inside this place. The mesh panels on my travel bag obscured my vision a bit, but I could still see all the people slowly walking in a line together through a maze of chairs, beds, and giant wooden things named “TOBO” and “LIATORP”. The people were so busy looking at all that stuff that no one even noticed that there was a pug in their presence! Thank goodness dad knew exactly what he was picking up so we zipped through there pretty quickly.

I was happy to get back in the car, unzip the lid of my travel bag, and perch my head up top for a nice relaxing snooze on the ride home.

Hello, ladies, ladypugs, gentlemen, and gentlepugs, welcome to Pug Court.

The court is now in session. Kindly take your seats.

Today’s case concerns a pug who has been accused of taking advantage of his grandpugrents this past week while his father was away.

Mr. Siddhartha Lamont has been accused of the following:

1. Waking his grandpugrents up at 5:15 am every morning and demanding that his breakfast be served immediately.
2. Hovering around his grandpop during dinner and slurping up any scrap that fell to the floor – even things on the DO NOT EAT list: Pizza crust, crumbs, pistachio shells (at least he spat these out).
3. Almost giving his grandmom a heart attack when he hid a small plush Christmas ornament. He made her think he had EATEN the ornament when he really had it hidden down in the basement the entire time. His grandmom had to spend the entire day searching the house to make sure he hadn’t EATEN the ornament as she was afraid he’d choke on it.
4. Multiple accounts of sneaking around gates and eating his dog-mate Ellie’s food even though he promptly received his normal meals every day.
5. Plunging muzzle-first into his giant bag of dog food when his grandmom had her back turned for 2 seconds.
6. Eating birdseed (Come on, seriously?! Are you THAT desperate!).

Mr. Siddhartha Lamont, after hearing all the accusations against you, how do you plead?

It sure has gotten cold here. Luckily, Sid makes a pretty good heat source and he’s decided that after lunch is the time to sit on my lap to keep me warm. While I appreciate the gesture (and the warmth), this happens to be the time when I’m WORKING. I’m not sure what the people on the phone make of the various snorts and grunts they surely hear in the background.

Sid’s actually got an exciting week in store as he will be under the watchful eye of his grandpugrents. I’m sure he’s going to pull out all the stops in re: his special moves to obtain treats. Most people cannot resist when a pug flashes “the pathetic look” their way, ESPECIALLY grandpugrents. We might as well say goodbye now to his waistline.

Hope you all have a great week and we’ll catch up with you soon!

First of all, Happy New Year, everyone!

Christmas and New Year’s have already passed and I’m sure everyone is eager to get on with 2012 and return to normal life, but we wanted to do a quick recap of our trip with Sid to Chicago for Christmas with my side of the family.

I’m sorry, Sid – but all those presents aren’t just for you!

The three of us stayed with my sister and her husband in their amazing pug-proof house. See, they are also familiar with a food-motivated dog – their Bichon/Poodle mix named Sweetie has an appetite on par with our flat-faced wonder. Sid had met Sweetie before when we passed through Chicago on our cross country drive from California to New York. For the most part they got along well – although Sid was a bit of a jerk and commandeered all of Sweetie’s favorite toys. Luckily, Sweetie lives up to her name and was kind enough to let him chew on her prized possessions.

Sid and Sweetie teamed up anytime someone was in the kitchen. They would turn on the charm, do tricks, create distractions, basically anything they could think of to obtain a morsel of what was on the counter. We were extremely diligent in assuring that nothing fell down to their level, but that didn’t squash their optimism.

My sister’s house is very sunny and Sid quickly discovered many warm, cozy spots to lay down and relax in. In addition to taking over Sweetie’s favorite toys, he also found her favorite spot on the back couch cushion and after a few spins was soon nested in. (Sorry, Sweetie! Sid can be a turd sometimes.)

Sid received many nice toys and treats for Christmas, including a Christmas neckerchief handmade by my sister and a new plush frog toy from my parents. Almost immediately after getting the frog, one of the little legs came off. Sid forgot about the rest of the frog and carried the little lone leg around with him the whole night. He loved that little leg.

Um, Sid – you sure you want to play with just the leg?

He also got a package of his one of his all time favorite toys – plush potatoes. Yes, these seemingly simple toys are one of Sid’s favorites. His favorite game is catch and these potatoes are the perfect size for him to catch. Plus – they have a squeaker inside which he adores (and quickly destroys).

Hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday. We’re hoping to get back to regular commenting and posting now that we are slowly getting back to normal life. We have a few more stories and photos from Sid’s trip, including a special “in-the-fur” meeting with one of Sid’s pug-blog pals, Payton!

P.S. Thank you all for your tips for flying with your pug – I think we used just about every single one. I’m so proud of how good Sid did! He’s a flying ace now.

We did a pretty good job avoiding the heat when it rolled in last week, but on Sunday we made an error in our timing of Sid’s morning “business meeting.”  Taking Sid out for his walk at 7am seemed like a great way to avoid the long-simmering heat of the late-morning / early-afternoon hours, but our half-awake brains didn’t think about the fact a 7am walk meant that he’d need to go out for his evening business around 5 or 6pm at the latest – – hours that had been among the hottest of the preceding days.  With a morning walk that early, there was no way Sid was going to make it until sundown, so we started brainstorming a solution that would provide Sid relief from both the heat and his bladder.

Luckily, we already polled our (amazingly resourceful) pug readers on the topic of keeping cool back in June.

Mochi had suggested a cooling vest, which is brilliant, but we never got around to actually buying one before we encountered the moment when we desperately needed it.

Payton said something about a Frogg Togg.  I’m still not quite sure what that is or what it means.  I Googled it and found some people-clothes for camping…regardless, it was still something we’d need to buy.  We needed a NOW solution.  Always at the last minute over here at Pug Slope!

Noodles suggested freezing a wet Sham-Wow and draping it over Sid’s back.  Hmm.  Now, we (sadly) don’t own any Sham-Wows, but we do own hand towels!  And a faucet!  And a freezer!

And that is how Sid became the dorkiest coolest pug in Brooklyn:

Sid didn’t let his dorky accessories bring him down, though, even when we ran into some cooling-accessory-free (i.e., normal) dogs on 7th Ave.  He looked those dogs in the eye, lifted his leg up high, and acted like wearing a frozen hand towel on your back while peeing was the new hot thing.  When he was done with his business, he trotted over to them and said, “My mom says there’s nothing cooler than safety,” which is a decidedly un-cool thing to say, but I’m not going to be the one to tell him that.  I’d rather he avoid heat stroke than win homecoming king.

Then we came across a fire hydrant spraying cool water into the street and onto the sidewalk.  We tried to turn this into a Pug Slope photo op, but Sid’s new-found confidence and strong regard for safety kept him from playing along.  “Dad, you of all people should know that water is a leading cause of lost marbles in flat-faced dogs,” proclaimed Sid. Sigh.

So, Sid wouldn’t play in the spraying water, but we managed to get him to stand near the hydrant for a few quick shots.

And, when we got home, we followed Sid’s Mimi’s advice of putting a frozen water bottle in the dog bed.  Like I said, the coolest pug in Brooklyn.

Sorry the posts have been a bit sporadic this past week – we had some company in town.

My parents came out for their first visit to NYC. Needless to say, we had a lot of ground to cover so every day was pretty much packed with activities. We did manage to squeeze in some Sid time with them and they both got to see our little guy run around like a maniac at the Prospect Park off-leash hours. Go, Sid, go!