Pug report: Words from the lap

Portrait on a lap

Louise wanted to make a special blog report today. Not that anything special is going on, she just felt a little bored and wanted to spice up her blog a bit. I suggested the picture linked here, and she felt that would do the trick.

She met a little dog in our area last night - a miniature pinscher, or min-pin. Louise was super excited to meet this new dog, who thankfully was polite, if a little timid - which is understandable since Louise was probably about 3x the size of this little dog and VERY eager to sniff her over. Still, neither dog was nasty (no growls, no bites) so Louise hopes to meet her again sometime soon.

Stop to smell someone else's rose

Again with another shot from the last camera outing. Here Louise decided to stop and smell some grass - I can only imagine why.

Louise has definately been liking the warmer weather. Lately she has been dragging either one of us out for extended walks now. Both my wife and my dog tend to be exhausted by the end of the day.

While I'm not sure, I'm guessing the cats are loving the warm weather too. It ensures that the dog is out of the house for extended periods at a time, plus they like to sunbathe next to the patio doors. Okay, who am I kidding - I'm pretty darned sure the cats absolutely love the warmer weather. They are cats, afterall.

Oh yeah - since it's been about a week and a half since this picture was taken, you can assume that things look pretty much the same, but the grass is slowly getting greener.

We like to play in the afternoons

More Ball time

It's slowly getting warmer, which means we are able to take Louise outside more frequently now. Here is another picture taken quite recently during our last outing with the ball. Since then, the grass has actually started to get green, and some of the birds have returned.

It also means the frost has left the ground, which makes for muddy paws. So last night Louise got another bath, and then proceeded to get VERY silly while we were drying her off. It was one of those times when I was wishing for a camera - after we got her dry, Louise decided to play with her salmon skin bone. Yes, that is right - she now plays with it, as opposed to simply eating it like before. Louise has it gnawed down to one end, and now picks it up, flicks it and chases it around, hovers over it, barks at it, lunges, bites for a while, then flicks it again, pounces on the new location, digs at it, chews some more, well you get the idea. The cats think she has absolutely lost her mind.

Eat, Drink and be Irish

Happy Saint Patrick's day, all you Irish puggies! And yes, for today, ALL pugs are Irish. That much we know for sure. For today's post, I've dug out one of my favorites from the archive and tweaked the colours a bit to make the most of the green grass.

As you can see, the sun is clearly shining on our little pug as she searches for clover. This picture reminds me of one of my favorite Irish sayings:

An Irishman is not drunk so long as he has a blade of grass to hold on to.

Sadly, I do not know whom to attribute this quote. Hey, I wonder how big of a holiday St. Patrick's is for Irish Setters or Irish Wolfhounds...

Spring time is for bathing

Okay, so the sad truth is that somehow, my digital camera stopped working. No 'incidents' to blame on folks this time. It didn't get dropped, submerged or plugged into the wrong charger - it just decided to go on strike without notice.

But fear not, dedicated readers of Heavy Breathing. I have kept quite a stash of fresh, unseen pictures that I can make use of, and I will also make use of some 'guest photographers' from time to time just so you can keep up with the goings on with little miss Louise.

For the past few days, Louise has decided that she is going to get up early, when I do. This is VERY unusual, as her normal routine through the winter has been to sleep until about the 'crack of noon' (that's PT, or PugTime for those of you who don't know) get her 'morning walk shortly after lunch, then play and nap a bit through the afternoon so that she can be ready for begging at supper time.

Now she is liking the idea of getting that early morning walk in first, before I head off to work. I'm not sure, but I highly suspect that she is sneaking back to bed after that, until a proper PT rising. But what does all of that have with the title or the picture you ask? Well, basically nothing. I chose the title because with spring comes muddy dog parks, and with muddy parks comes dirty paws, and well you can work out the rest. This shot was taken shortly after her most recent bath.

See? I eventually came to the point.

Playing with a ball

Ball time

If you remember, Louise likes to chase rocks while on our walks. In an effort to save her teeth, and our sanity, we have been trying to encourage her to chase after something a little softer. Here we have Louise pictured next to her ball.

The sad part is, the ball is nowhere near as appealing as a good sized rock to Louise.

But she does chase after the ball, which is good because any time I can throw something small for her to run after, it saves me from having to run there myself. Once she catches up with the ball (or rock) then she generally trys to pick it up in her mouth to carry it off to some other place. For example, rocks on the street are always brought to the curb. This is usually a fantastic outcome because then I only have to walk half as far, and can generally take my time in doing so. I think what I need is a dog toy that is shaped like a rock.

Some indoor silliness

Keep yer chin up

So we were playing on the sofa the other day and I happened to get a few more pictures. I've put a few up on Flickr already if you would like to see the others. For now, I'll stick with this beauty of a shot. I'm not really sure why it makes my wife and I laugh when we see it - we had some difficulty with deciding on what to call this photo. But here is Louise, caught between smiling and closing her eyes and mouth for the camera. She tends to stop panting when she sees the flash, which is why we have this 'sideways' look pictured here.

Tomorrow I will post a shot of us playing outside, since we have had sunny weather lately.

Chewing on a salmon skin bone

Salmon Bone

On the days when Louise has been really good, we sometimes treat her with a special bone made from dried salmon skin. She just loves them, and it generally takes her a good hour or so to completely eat them.

I am not so fond of them. They stink really bad.

I'm not kidding about that. They already smell through the package a bit, but when she starts to gnaw on them, the salmon skin starts to soften, get slimy and really stenchy. There are even times when we have to get out the scissors to cut the softened salmon skin into manageable chunks so that someone doesn't choke on them. But despite the strong smell, it's quite obvious that Louise just loves these treats, so we indulge her.

This photo was taken shortly after giving her the treat, and as you can see, she hopped up on her blanket like a good dog because she knows she gets in trouble if she eats that stinky thing on the bare sofa. Also note Louise is sitting in the traditional 3 leg pose, where she has one of her hind legs pointing between her two front legs. From most angles, this makes it look like she has only the three legs.

Pancake breakfast

Pancake breakfast

Well here is Louise enjoying a pancake breakfast. While I'm sure she would have enjoyed having syrup on her pancake, both my wife and I thought better of it. Louise didn't seem to mind, and wasted no time in enjoying it, once she figured out how to get the pancake in her mouth. I think the verdict is in: Louise definately likes pancakes.

A breakfast like that requires a fair bit of exercise to stay trim, so afterward Louise was off to run around the courtyard for a while to burn off calories. She came back refreshed, and was barking quite a bit as she tried to tell me about her adventures.

Saturday is a play day

Towel Head

This morning when we took Louise for a walk, it was sunny, and while not warm, was at least much more comfortable than it has been. We decided to cut through the dog park on the way back to give Louise a chance to stretch her little legs.

Big mistake.

Well okay not really, but today the dog park was very muddy. So Louise got quite filthy as she romped around in the grass and mud. She didn't mind though, because there was a Labrador Retriever to play with.

Keeping warm on a lap

So when we got home, the first thing we did was to give Louise a bath. She's never thrilled with that prospect, but doesn't really mind either, so long as the water isn't too hot or cold. Her favorite part of course, is getting towelled off afterwards, when she tends to get quite silly.

So she has been having a good day so far. Now that we have her dry, she is lounging with us on the sofa, taking a rest so she can be ready for tonight's walk.

Nap time with friends

Sleeping buddies

Louise takes time to nap with her friends. In the background we have Sassy, who is probably the only cat in the house who doesn't really mind too much if Louise wants to sleep nearby, and in the front we have one of Louise's favorite toys, her teddy bear. She's not chewing on it here, by the way - she's using it as a pillow.

This unlikely trio ventured into the spare bedroom to hang out with me while I was playing computer games. When I turned around, I figured I better grab a picture, as it's not often that this happens.