As you may already know by now, one of Sid’s favorite things ever is his treasured Wigzi treat ball. Each day, when I eat lunch, Sid gets a treat ball stuffed with a couple crunchy treats and dab of peanut butter.

(Sid and his glow-in-the-dark Wigzi circa 2014)

The only downside to the Wigzi is that even though it is pretty durable, after several months-worth of chomping sessions, it eventually starts coming apart at the seam. Based on Sid’s daily usage, the lifespan of the Wigzi was about 2-3 months.

About a year and a half ago, I discovered that the Wigzi was sadly being discontinued. How could this happen to Sid’s FAVORITE THING ON EARTH?! I searched every online and brick-and-mortar retailer I could but most were already out of stock. However I lucked out at Drs. Foster and Smith, who still had half a dozen left. So I did what any sensible pug dad would do: I ordered every single one of ’em!

Things had been just fine for many months until our stockpile started to dwindle. I emailed the owner of the Wigzi company and he mentioned some kind of deal with Kong that had been in the works. It sounded like the patent for the toy had been sold to the Kong folks. Well, I waited and waited, while Sid’s last Wigzi ball slowly started to show signs of its imminent demise.

But as fate would have it, as soon as the last Wigzi could hold peanut butter no more, I found Kong had released their “Widgets” pocket ball, which is exactly the same thing as the Wigzi, only it was offered in a different assortment of bright colors!

Of course Sid couldn’t care less who made the ball, as long as it was delivered to him at high noon stuffed with goodies!

And in true pug fashion, every time he cleans the last morsel out of the pockets he brings the ball over to me, plunks it down at my feet, looks up at me with an expression that says “OK, I’m back for my free refill”.

Greetings and salutations to all you wonderful Pug Slopers out there!

This is Sid here with you today and I wanted to tell you all about a new member of my gang.

As soon as I set my bulging pug eyes on his magnificent long ears and puffy white tail, I couldn’t resist inviting him to play. Get over here, Rabbit!

We had a wondeful time playing chase and tag and basically all the games that rabbits like.

We ended the day with a relaxing cuddle and talked about our mutual love of baby carrots.

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 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!

—

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.

(THAT LITTLE PAW JUST KILLS ME!!!)

This week is Sid’s Birthday week. His actually Birthday is on Saturday but he likes to extend the period of celebration – mostly because it means he gets spoiled with treats for a whole week instead of just one day.

I was browsing some potential Birthday items online the other night and I noticed Sid snooping over my shoulder. I told him that his Birthday presents are meant to be a surprise and he should cover up his eyes so he couldn’t see what I was ordering.

He bolted to his bed and ducked under his lion toy. I went back to the computer to load more things into my shopping cart.

About ten seconds later, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed this:

C’mon Sid! I said NO PEEKING!

Our apartment building is having all kinds of work done to its exterior so life has been pretty chaotic the past couple weeks at the ol’ Pug Slope HQ. Poor Sid was finding it hard to relax with mysterious men walking around on scaffolding outside all of our windows. The work seems to require lots of really loud drilling of bricks which releases brick dust everywhere.

This past weekend, Sid was finally able to find solace from all the noise and commotion with his new plush lion toy.

He located all the good sunny spots around the apartment and would trot from spot to spot with his gigantic floppy lion in tow.

I’m hoping I can find something to serve as my own comfort lion before all the drilling makes me lose my mind.