Snuggle Puggle Job

Woo hoo! Eduardo says we can have a job like him! Here is all we have to do:
1. You must Snuggle for anyone who needs your snuggle powers (example: a sick furson or person).
2. Always snuggle with the family.
3. Never use your snuggle powers for evil!
4. Snuggle for no less than 12 hours a day.
5. Make sure your work environment is comfy & cozy!
Now just add this button to your page, with a link to this post (Eduardo The Snuggle Puggle). Do a post on your blog on the 15th of every month called, "Working With The Snuggle Puggle." showing you, at work!

Now if we can just learn to read a calendar...

Pug hugs and kisses!

The Pug Posse

Kiss-Moose

Hello! It's your buddy the Moose! We hope everyone has been enjoying the holiday season. We had an ok Kiss-Moose. It was only ok because our humans left us for most of Kiss-Moose Eve...and they actually had fun without us! Can you believe that? Mommy had a hard time getting home from work on Tuesday because there was a lot of ice all over the roads. So she stayed home on Wednesday and did her work from home. We like when she does that, but she thinks we distract her too much! Daddy only worked a half day and as soon as he got home, they got in the car and drove to Aunt Debbie's house in Lafayette, IN. It only takes them an hour to drive there. But they left us at home! What an abomination! I still can't believe they left us...and Bernice and Eli and myself have never been to their house!

Anyway, Mommy's grandmother (her father's mother), Namie, made most of the food. Mommy's family is Polish/Slovak, so they have a traditional Kiss-Moose Eve dinner. There isn't supposed to be any meat at the dinner. Namie just turned 93 in September! And she's still cooking! Here she is at the stove with Emma, Aunt Debbie's youngest... Here is Uncle Chuck opening a bottle of wine while Daddy and Sam watch... They have a really tall ceiling and a really tall tree!Here's Mommy sitting next to her parents... This is Mommy's favorite part of the dinner...the pierogis! They are like pasta that are filled with stuff (Mommy's favorite is the cheese), boiled, and served with browned butter...mmmm, healthy!Ah, a nice loving moment with Daddy and Sam...Here's Namie trying to see what cousin Alex is doing...Wait...what's this??? Another dog??? They went to see another dog??? And it's not even a pug!!! What were they thinking? (Mommy: Her name is Daisy and she is a very sweet dog, but she could never replace the pugs!) All right, now it's just getting ugly...what on earth is this creature??? It's not a pug...it's not even a dog!!! Jasmine tells me it's a C-A-T!!! (Mommy: His name is Toby and he is one of the friendliest cats I have ever met...but I'm allergic to cats, so there is nothing to get upset about. And he was adopted from the Humane Society!) So after dinner, they played with the Wee, whatever that is. I just got to see the pictures, so I really don't understand it. Sam's favorite was something with this round thing that he held... This looks like Daddy is bowling, but a real bowling ball would have broken that big TV!Oh, great...the big yellow dog does tricks too! So they got home kinda late and we went to bed. Then we woke up on Kiss-Moose morning! Can you believe Daddy had to actually wake Sam up? There was a big bag waiting for us and we couldn't wait to get to it!Sam's favorite gift was a new DS... Mommy got this really cool shirt...it says "Pug Mama" :-) Daddy has been bugging Mommy for some pictures for his office, so Mommy put some pictures in a frame and filled a whole small album with pictures of Sam. Daddy showed the picture of Sidney to Jasmine and she tried to smell him with her tongue...We got a bag full of new toys and some Marrowbones, our favoritest treats! It was a very exhausting morning! Then Mommy got busy cooking. She made a beef rib roast with potatoes and it smelled soooo good while it was cooking! And she made this Yule log for dessert...it's really just chocolate cake with chocolate icing and filled with whipped cream, but it looks like something we should be peeing on!Pippin's most favorite present was this hamburger. He loves ball shaped stuffed toys and this was just the right size AND it looks like a hamburger (although the blue bun makes it look rotten)! On Friday, Daddy went back to work and Mommy took him lunch and then she went shopping. Mommy also worked a little on her cross-stitch, but she was pretty tired most of the time she was home. On Saturday, we got up and Mommy and Daddy ran some quick errands, then we all got packed in the car and drove down to Louisville to see Daddy's family. It's a longer drive than going to Lafayette, so we spent the night at Grandpa's house. Here is Sam with his cousins Tabitha, Claire, and Max. Max is from Korea and was adopted by Daddy's brother! Aunt Pam has cats, but we still enjoyed taking our turns snuggling with her... Jasmine and Pippin must have been smelling the ham cooking...Here's Bernice showing off her beautiful smile ;-) And we finally came home on Sunday. We slept really good last night! We were totally pooped! Then Mommy and Daddy went to work again today. Sam stayed home with us, so we were busy keeping him in line! Daddy's family is coming up here on Wednesday to celebrate New Year's Eve, so Mommy is supposed to be cleaning, but we talked her into catching us up on our blog...she has been very neglectful lately! Just because she's busy doesn't mean she shouldn't be typing for us!

Well, I guess we'll have more pictures later this week...hopefully Mommy won't take forever to post them!

Pug hugs and kisses!
Ernie and the Pug Posse

Merry Christmas Eve!

Yay! Today is Christmas Eve! Mommy was supposed to go to work for a few hours today, but she decided to stay home and do her work here. She had such a rough ride coming home yesterday because of all the ice that she didn't feel like driving all the way across town for just a few hours. It's not supposed to be as bad this morning because the temperatures have gone up, but why risk it?

So we're going to hang out with Mommy for the morning! Mommy and Daddy and Sam are supposed to go to Aunt Debbie's this afternoon for Christmas Eve dinner, so we don't get to spend the whole day snuggling with our humans, but they're not going anywhere tomorrow. And I think we even get some presents tomorrow! Maybe we'll just get back in bed while they're gone today...

Warm and snuggly...

So sleepy...

It's so great to be us...

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and happy whatever else you might celebrate!

Pug hugs and mistletoe kisses!

The Pug Posse

Cold Sunday

Good morning! This is Jasmine here. Sorry Mommy has been AWOL for a few days. She went to her company Christmas party on Friday, so she didn't get home until almost 9. She said they closed the office early and the party started at 3. It was downtown at a place called Jillians. She had a few beers, so after the party she walked around the mall a little before driving home. She tried to take some pictures of the lights, but it she had some difficulties with the camera while she was trying to drive. This was the best one she got...

Remember this picture from about a month ago? Mommy posted it and was going to keep posting her progress on this cross stitch project to try to keep motivated. The picture is from a black and white picture of her parents' wedding picture. Well, she kept getting a little farther and would say, "I'm just going to get this much more done before I post another picture" and finally...

...she finished the first page of the pattern! I know you can't really tell what it is yet. This is the middle of the entire picture. Last night she started the page for the part directly upwards from the middle. There are 9 pages total and depending on how it goes, she might not do the bottom three pages.

It is a cold day today...and still NO snow!!! Mommy is very disappointed that we don't have any snow. And last night she heard that we might have rain on Christmas Eve! She really was hoping for a White Christmas. I think I would rather have snow than rain because the snow doesn't get me all wet like rain does.

Time to do some snuggling with Mommy while she works on her cross stitch picture!

Pug hugs and kisses!

Jasmine and the Pug Posse

Sidney?

First off I'd like to say thank you to my wonderful blogger buddies for their sweet comments after yesterday's manic post! Once I got started there I just couldn't stop and it felt good to be able to share. I had tears streaming down my face while I was typing it and your kind comments made me tear up again, but all in a good way.

Now I'd like to talk about our dear, sweet Sidney. He's really the reason I'm blogging. He passed away on July 29. He just went to sleep and didn't wake up. Denny got him for me as a wedding gift in 1994 and he was with us through thick and thin. He was always there for us and he was the most awesome pug ever! When he died, we asked the vet about what to do with him. They said the city would "bury" him for us, but we didn't want them burying him in some landfill. We chose to have him creamated and his ashes are in a small wooden box on our mantle. Here is the handsome boy... As you can see, Pippin and Sidney were bestest buddies.

I was thinking about how good Pippin is looking now since we brought the other pugs home. I really don't think he got so fat from over-eating. I really think it was because he adored Sidney and wanted to be with him and to look out for him. Sidney couldn't get around very well in his last couple of years. For the last few months of his life he couldn't get up at all. He had a back problem and he gradually lost the use of his back legs. So he stayed on his pillows and Pippin snuggled with him. Once Sid was gone and we got hyper Eli, Pippin started getting exercising and he has been slimming down to the svelte pug you know today ;-)

Pippin always seemed to be there with Sid. The strange thing was he didn't seem too grief-stricken when Sid died. Jasmine was heartbroken, but Pip didn't really seem upset. It was the Saturday after Sid died (he died on a Tuesday) that we went to our first pug Meetup. It was so therapeutic for Jasmine. She had such a good time running and playing with the other pugs. That afternoon we went to KPR's Pug 500 and met Eli. It was like it was fate. We met Kelly and Brian and Sophie and Dixie at the next Meetup and I found them on FB. Kelly introduced me to her blog and suggested I start one too. Thanks Kelly!

Anyway, maybe I watch too much Ghost Hunters, but I think Sid may still be here with us. There hasn't been much real evidence, but we have had some small experiences. Like one night not long after Sid died, Denny thought Jasmine got off the bed in the middle of the night. If a pug has to go outside during the night, they go down the stairs next to the bed and head out the door and up the hall. He got up to go let her out and saw what he thought was her pass by the bedroom door. Granted it was dark and he was half asleep, but it was still weird. He then realized that Jas was still in bed sound asleep. Denny swore that it looked just like a black pug in the hallway. I think he even woke me up to tell me about it. Little experiences like that.

If you watch Ghost Hunters, you know that they don't put too much stock in "orbs". They can usually be explained by dust or bugs or something. Then I got this picture of Eli outside. I thought it was a drop of rain on the lens, but there was nothing when I looked at the camera. Still, I was skeptical. I joked with Denny that it was Sid sniffing Eli's butt :-)

Then yesterday I was trying to take pictures of the pugs together. Jasmine had walked away, but the other 4 were still hanging together. This is the first picture...

Then I took this one within seconds after that first one...Notice anything different?

I know this sounds crazy, but I really think Sid is still here with us. And maybe that's why Pippin wasn't too upset...his buddy was still here and running with him. Jasmine is more of the "adult" of the pug group, so maybe she couldn't see Sid. I don't know...am I totally nuts? Don't answer that too quickly! I have had a few other minor paranormal experiences in my life. The weirdest was last year at Denny's Mom's funeral, we were outside at the cemetery and it was really cold. I felt someone lean against my back and I thought it was Sam moving close to me to keep warm. I turned around and saw that Sam was about a foot or two behind me. There was no one touching me. I don't know that it was Paula...I tend to think it was someone else who was buried at the cemetery who was just trying to see what was going on.

Now for the really good stuff...we got an award from Punchbug today! Woo hoo! Thank you so much Punchy! It really made our day :-)

We would like to now award Harry, Eduardo, and Margie! Woo hoo! Thanks for being such great blogger buddies!

Pug hugs and kisses!

Vikki and the Pug Posse

Wordy Wednesday (caution: highly charged emotions...)

I just got done reading Kelly's blog (aka The Misadventures of Pug(s) and Bugg). We are pug owners and our pugs are not perfect dogs, at least in the minds of non-pug owners. But they are wonderful, loving creatures and they are full of personality. People have called us crazy for having so many pugs (even when we only had 3) and some people have just shook their heads and given the look that says "You're an idiot". Worse yet, people have given us grief because Pippin is a bit, well, fat. I get really irritated when people criticize when they don't know what the other's situation is. We get it a lot not just with the pugs but also with our son. We adopted Sam 3 years ago. He came to live with us right after his 12th birthday. He was taken into foster care when he was 6 and his mom was arrested. Not only was she a drug user, but she didn't send him to school. He went to a few foster homes before ending up in a "therapeutic" group home where he stayed for 2 years before we found him. So now he's approaching 15 and he's sitting in the living room crying his eyes out because he was an ass to me and lied to me. He's not crying because he feels bad about what he did, but because he got in trouble for it. Believe it or not, this is improved behavior from when we got him. A few weeks before we went to court to make the adoption legal, he had a major temper tantrum after he got home from school and Denny wasn't home yet. He went out into the garage and took a tennis racquet and started beating up my washer and dryer. When I went out there to try to stop him, he acted like he would swing it at me. I stepped in to take it and got the racquet, but he slapped me in the face with his bare hand. He then grabbed a baseball bat and really pounded at the washer and dryer and threatened me. I had no choice but to call the police. They took him to juvie and from there we took him to the psychiatric hospital where he stayed for a week. I got my very first migraine that night. Denny and I then had some very serious conversations about whether or not we would go through with the adoption. Obviously we did. Sam could barely read when he came here, now he's up to about a 6th grade level. He's a whiz at math if he focuses and uses his brain. He's actually learning things. He's still failing all his classes, but that's because we can't seem to get him to care about his grades. Ok, so what is my point, you ask? Don't judge people without knowing what they're going through. We went through years of fertility treatments that included one pregnancy with twins that I miscarried. It was so difficult to decide to adopt, and we felt it was important for us to adopt a child from foster care since there are so many kids in foster care who need loving, stable homes. But people, including family (ESPECIALLY family), criticize our parenting. I see them give him dirty looks when he acts up in public, but they scold us for trying to correct his bad manners. "Don't be so hard on him." "He's a teenage boy, that's how they are." Now I know for a fact that none of my parents' kids swung a baseball hat at their heads. They never had to call the police on us or have us admitted to a psych hospital. They never had to take us to therapy (although maybe they should have). I know it's not quite the same thing as Kelly's situation with her pugs, but it's just as infuriating. I know Denny and I don't have a lot of parenting experience and we jumped into it at full speed, but don't criticize us when you haven't been through anything even somewhat close to what we're going through. We know we're doing the right thing and it's not for anyone else to judge.

Ok, sorry for going on a major rant there. I read Kelly's blog then we had the Sam episode and I really needed to get some of that out. I so appreciate my blogger buddies here and I hope you all bear with me through this. Everyone offered the nicest words when I posted about my mother-in-law's death and I want you all to know how much your comments meant to me. And Kelly, WE know what wonderful pug parents you and Brian are! I think you are such great people to have rescued the three amigos. I know what it's like to "save" another living creature, be it pug or human. You've met Sam, you know how weird he can be, but he has a stable, loving home now, just like Sophie, Dixie, and Harley do.

That being said, here are some cute pug pictures...
Thank you to everyone for enduring this post!
Pug hugs and kisses!
Vikki and the entire Pug Posse

P.S. Kelly: Pippin loves Sophie :-)

Ernie's Tuesday

Hi there! Poor me...I have had a cough for a couple of days. It started on Sunday and Momma thought it was because I was pulling on my leash too hard at Petco. I wore a Colts shirt (with #18 of course) so everyone would think I look especially cute matching Momma since she was wearing her Peyton Manning shirt. Then yesterday I kept coughing even more. I was sounding like Momma when she has bronchitis! Well, she did some research on dog coughing and she's pretty sure I got Kennel Cough, but we don't know how I got it. Besides the nasty cough, I've been feeling like myself. Momma was pretty worried by last night because every time I tried to bark I just coughed. She was going to call the vet today, but the cough is already starting to go away. Daddy told her I was barking this morning and driving Sam crazy, but hardly any cough at all. As you can see in this picture, it didn't slow down my appetite! I can fit my WHOLE face in the bowl! Eli was pretty hungry too...

Pippin always greets Momma with a toy when she gets home from work. He loves his stuffed soccer balls!

We all love to snuggle together, except for Jasmine. Her favorite place is on Daddy's pillows!

Bernice and Eli sure look cute snuggling together. Momma calls Bernice "Wiggle Worm" because she's little and her whole body wiggles when she wags her tail!

Here we are watching the Colts game on Sunday. We all have to get as close to Momma as we can! Don't I look handsome in my Colts shirt? Momma said they got it for Sidney when he was their only pug. I still can't believe they had only one pug! Good thing we're here to keep her from looking crazy with only one pug!!!

Here's little Wiggle Worm again...

Eli found the stuffed squirrel...

You can see I'm happy that the Colts won...

Pippin loves Jasmine. They snuggled together this morning when Momma was getting ready for work...

The other 3 of us were hanging out, waiting for Momma to leave the room so we could go running after her...it's our fun morning game: Pug races through the dark hallway!

We saw it snowing earlier today, but by the time Momma got home and let us out, it was more like rain that froze when it hit the ground. Everyone is home safe now, so we're glad about that, but we didn't like going outside! I hurried back in the house as fast as I could!

We're going to make Momma sit on the couch now so we can snuggle with her. I feel much better today, but I need more snuggling. I think that's what made me get better so quick! Momma kept giving me extra snuggles yesterday!

Pug hugs and kisses!

Ernie and the Pug Posse