Visiting the coworkers

Another weekend means another day at the office. The doberman is out barking in the back yard, which has Louise plenty excited, but she is trying real hard not to bark too loudly.

You see, we aren't alone in the office today.

Lani, one of my co-workers was also in to put in some overtime, and she just loves visiting with Louise. As you can see by the picture, Louise is also happy to visit with Lani. When Lani picked up Louise, the first thing she said was "oof, you are HEAVY."

Now in Louise's defense, Lani does not own a dog of her own and had no idea how heavy a dog should be. Either way, Louise didn't seem to mind, and was extra cooperative when it came time to pose for the camera.

The best laps are found at the kitchen table

Louise's pug tip for puppies #4: when sitting on a lap, try to choose one that is sitting at a kitchen table if at all possible. An alternative approach would be to choose one in front of a coffee table, but only when hors d'ouvres are being served.

To do this properly though, timing is everything.

The picture in today's post shows a failed attempt at snagging a bite to eat while in a lap. Louise hopped up into my lap AFTER we were done eating. In fact, this picture was taken on the night that I installed more ram into our laptop. Note the look of disappointment on Louise's face when she realized there was no food on the table. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but one of the things it did not capture was the huge 'sigh' that came from Louise when she realized her plan had backfired.

Overtime AGAIN

Well here we are again - technically it isn't weekend work if it is only Good Friday, but it sure feels like weekend work. As you can see here, Louise was a little disappointed that the doberman didn't show herself, so she took a quick nap in between visits from other employees who dropped in throughout the morning.

Of course, by lunch time Louise was quitting the office, to head back home. She was needed to help with some more renovation projects. Of course, during lunch we went out for a walk and she got to meet some new dogs. One was even a puppy. We also got some new food for her, this time switching back to her favorite brand.

Overall, she has been having a good day.

An empty dinner table is just not the same

Last night I was doing an upgrade on our laptop, which meant cleaning off the dining room table. As the procedure was wrapping up, Louise hopped up into my lap and just hung out with us while we sat around talking for a bit.

As you can see by her look, she is less enthused when the table has been cleared of the food items.

Of course, I would be less enthused too, since she was not able to partake in the lobster dinner we had. Well she did get a carrot treat, but c'mon - that hardly compares. Sometimes it is no fun being the dog, I guess.

Playing with Bear

Sometimes Louise just likes to get a bit goofy. This was one of those times. I had borrowed the office camera for the night, and was playing with Louise when my wife snapped this shot. Louise had just looked up from chewing on the bear's nose.

You see, the bear was trash talking.

In the photo, you can also see the bear's accomplice, the stuffed gingerbread man. Louise had already finished him off earlier, which was why she was focused on teaching the bear a lesson. This fight eventually ended with Louise leaving triumphant. Her undefeated record still stands.

More weekend adventures

Well Louise had to accompany me into the office for some more overtime on Saturday. She was well behaved right up until that neighbor's doberman came out again. Then I had to hastily figure out a way to distract Louise.

Let's just say it is good that by then we were alone in the office. She made quite a ruckus.

Louise is liking weekends more and more. There are just way more opportunities for walks. Personally, I think she is taking advantage a little bit. I am thinking that a private yard would come in handy for this purpose.

Oh yeah - the other day we ran into Cookie again. It has been months since we have seen that old dog. As usual, Cookie snapped and growled at Louise, who simply put her back to her for a while until the old dog settled down. Louise peed on a spot in the yard, and Cookie had to go pee on it just to prove a point. But by then Louise didn't care, because at least Cookie stopped growling. She never did quite get friendly, but Louise was trying very hard to win her over.

Well I better wrap this up. Somebody is going to want a walk pretty soon (well, as soon as someone else is done eating - Louise tends to hover nearby - you know, 'just in case.')

Fresh grass for Louise

I was doing some renovation work on the condo this afternoon when my wife noticed that Louise was looking a little depressed. She doesn't like it when the both of us are busy doing other things - I'm not sure if you other pug owners have noticed this behaviour or not.

Anyway, my wife suggested I take a break from what I was doing to give Louise a walk, and it was just the thing we needed. Since it was a nice day, I decided to take Louise to the dog park and just let her run around and enjoy herself. Well it has obviously been a little while since I was there last, because all the grass is green already. As we arrived we could hear an airplane high overhead - it was the usual guy who takes the skydivers up for thier jumps. This trip, he let out two divers and we watched them parachute down.

We also had the pleasure to meet two other dogs, Lexie and Kyla. Both were Labradors, and Lexie was young and playful. She kept trying to get Louise to chase her for fun, and managed to do it a few times. Even though Kyla was about 4 times the size of Louise, she turned out to be pretty nervous of her, growling a bit and raising the hair on her back. But her owner was right there to keep control of the situation, and Louise was a good girl. Overall, I think she really enjoyed the encounter.

That reminds me - we saw another dog earlier today. Saturday mornings are usually spent by us running into town to do the weekly grocery shopping, etc. Today was no different, and at one point my wife ran into a store while I took Louise for a stroll through town. During our wandering we walked past a Starbucks (yes, Vernon has them too - lots of them) and there were people sitting outside with thier dog. This dog was about the same size as Louise, and was very friendly. He reminded me of another dog, Vern, who used to live next door to us, and who Louise just adored. Again, she was very polite and after a few minutes of sniffing each other, she came when I called for her to resume her walk. As usual, this picture has nothing at all to do with today's events. It was taken about a month ago after one of her baths.

One other thing: for all you Mac users out there, just about any blog with the little Flickr side panel (like the one I have here) will cause Safari to crash. Sad, but true. Firefox will work just fine though. More info on the problem can be found here.