Hi everyone! Sid reporting. I’m so glad you’re here today. I want to tell you about the insanely fun time I had last weekend. Now that I’ve had a few days to recuperate, I’m ready to tell you all about it.

Well, I first knew something was up when my dad starting digging around in the closet and out flew my red travel bag. Last time that got pulled out we ended up going on an epic adventure in Lincoln Park. This time, however, we didn’t ride on the El train but instead got on a city bus. When we arrived at our destination in the west loop – Pet Care Plus – I was greeted by a handful of friendly pugs. Some of them were wearing flotation devices which I thought was odd, until I set eyes on… THE POOL!

I began by doing a few laps around the perimeter. To make sure the pool was, you know, up to all the proper regulations and such.

There were a few pugs swimming and some bobbing around in their floatation devices. I noticed a few other pugs just hanging out at one end of the pool, where the water was only dew-claw deep. Aha! That looked like a good place to start.

It was very hot and the sun was beating down, so getting my feet wet felt splendid and instantly cooled me off. Then all of a sudden I saw something familiar in the water. It was my glow-in-the-dark WIGZI ball!!! My dad had brought it with so we could play in the water.

It floats, and sometimes it would drift out of my reach into the deep end…

See how I put on the brakes?! Luckily my dad or some of the other awesome humans there would toss it back in my direction so I could try to bob for it in the shallow water again. Trying to catch it in the water was really challenging. I eventually found the best strategy was to quickly dunk my whole head under water to grab hold of the ball.

I decided to take a break from playing with the WIGZI ball so I waded back into the shallow end of the pool. Well, guess who I ran into?! None other than my friends that I met last month on the pug boat tour – Violet and Timmy!

That’s me and Violet – isn’t she cute?! She’s very petite. She just celebrated her 10th birthday and brought home-made mini cupcakes for all the pugs. They were delicious! Full disclosure: I actually ate two cupcakes. Thank you so much for the cupcakes, Violet!

I was feeling a bit mischievous and saw Violet trying to take some glamour shots, so I thought it’d be funny to photo-bomb them (with my blue potato, of course). Hee hee!

My dad and I played a bunch more with my blue potato, I met a bunch of other cool Chicago pugs, and I was the lucky recipient of some complementary butt scratches. Yes, that is the spot!

All in all, it was the perfect day for a pug.

And now you can hopefully understand why I was soooo pooped when I got home! I can’t wait to go to the next pug pool party!

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Thank you so much to Violet’s mom, Christina, for taking the bulk of these photos. See, my doofus dad, in the heat of packing all the beach towels, toys, sunscreen, and other items, FORGOT to bring his good camera! So Violet’s mom was kind enough to take a bunch of shots of me! THANK YOU, CHRISTINA!

Also, THANK YOU to Chris and Dee Dee for organizing and hosting the event. If you live in Chicago and are interested coming to the pug meetups, the group’s website is: http://www.meetup.com/chicagopugs.

Sid reach a new level of exhaustion yesterday.

He was pretty much horizontal from 3pm until bedtime. I actually had to wake him up to give him his dinner, which, as you know with pugs, is unheard of.

Now you’re probably wondering: “what sort of crazy activity would cause a pug to get THAT TIRED?” Well, I’m going to let Sid tell you all about it later this week, but here’s a little picture preview. Let’s just say it involved a pool, a plush potato, and about thirty pugs…

(Above photo by Christina Gibson)

OHMYGOSH – I don’t even know where to begin. Well, how about at the beginning.

This past Sunday, my normal late-morning snooze was interrupted by the sound of my travel bag tumbling from the closet shelf to the floor. My dad was flying around the apartment gathering up a bunch of things including a beach towel, sunscreen, my portable water dish, and a bag of treats. I figured we were heading out to the Foster dog beach. But then we got on the El train which was weird because we usually would walk or take the bus to get to the dog beach. Where the heck were we going?

After about 45 minutes of traveling (which I don’t mind at all since I was the recipient of a pretty steady stream of venison jerky treats the whole time), we arrived at a place called the Pet Care Plus “K-9 Oasis”. I have to say, it looked pretty amazing.

The Oasis had two huge sections: one where dogs could romp around on various platforms and beds, and another which was pretty much just one ENORMOUS DOG POOL!!!

It was a hot and sunny day so I dove right in to cool off. Boy did that cool water feel great! As I started walking I noticed the water getting deeper – turns out the pool starts off shallow but gradually slopes down to a deep end.

I enjoyed wading around the shallow end and sometimes venturing a little deeper so I could float a bit. My dad tried to encourage me to go into the deep end to try some swimming but I adamantly refused.

“DEEP END? Um, no way, dude – unless you’re prepared with handfuls of treats.”

Soon, I started to notice I was not alone. There was another pug hanging out in the pool.

And then ANOTHER. A pug pool party was forming before my very eyes! SWEET!

My dad explained that the Chicago Pug Meetup group had rented out the K-9 Oasis that day. So I guess he knew about this pug party all along but wanted it to be a surprise for me. Well, I certainly was pleased to meet so many cool pugs and have pug-obsessed humans fawning all over me.

One of the other humans brought this awesome pink ball and I was totally smitten with it. I couldn’t stop batting it around with my paws or trying to catch it in my jaws.

For some reason my dad couldn’t stop laughing at my ball-catching technique. He even recorded a video of it. I don’t think there was anything funny about it – I mean it works for sharks, right? And of course I made my dad go retrieve the ball when it started floating towards the deep end. I was not going to let my ears wet!

Sometimes I’d lose track of the ball and another pug would play with it for a while. That little pink ball was a hit, that’s for sure.

“Yo, anyone see a ball? Pink. Floaty. Perhaps with some pug teeth marks in it…”

I played in the water non-stop for over two hours, so by the end of the party I was starting to fade.

I had so much fun. Thank you to the Chicago Pug Meetup group for planning such a fun afternoon. I can’t wait to to do it again! And to all you other pugs out there – if you have a dog pool in your town, BY ALL MEANS get your curly-tailed butt down there pronto! It’s the best thing ever!

Hi everyone!

When my dad wrote a post about ways to keep a pug cool during the summer, he neglected to mention the most totally awesome way…

Let’s just say I had another one of the best weekends ever this past weekend. It’s amazing what happens when you combine a hot sunny day, a large body of water, a squishy pink ball, and like, you know, TWENTY OR SO PUGS!

I’ll give you the full scoop later this week.