by Melody Bowen
Every day I become a little more convinced that these tiny little piglet-like pseudo-dogs are the strangest creatures on the planet. All three of my pugs -- Banjo, Mandolin, & Jewel -- have very distinct personalities, but combined together they make for an interesting little collection of idiosyncracies that often leave me scratching my head in wonder, hollering obscenities in frustration, or laughing in amazement until I nearly wet my pants.
This morning (yet another omigod-I'm-running-so-late morning), I slid out of bed and staggered across the bedroom to let the pugs out of their "biscuits" (what I call their kennels). My plan was to usher them out the back door to do their morning business while I got ready for work. I opened their "biscuit" doors, and all three apparently sensed the unseasonably cool temperatures outside and refused to budge. Actually, strike that. Banjo and Jewel refused to budge. Mandolin, my once-upon-a-time-sweet-and-docile pug, bolted across the room and -- unbeknownst to me -- hid in a corner. I managed to coax Banjo out of her biscuit, but I had to actually drag Jewel out of hers. I ushered those two into the living room, then discovered Mandolin was missing. Once I found her (all the while hollering "I'm so late! I don't have time for this!"), I had to carry her. I managed to poke Mandolin out the back door, only because I was carrying her. Jewel finally acquiesced to my shrieking and waddled outside as well. Banjo, on the other hand, went completely limp, even when I picked her up. She wasn't going anywhere voluntarily. It took a full 10 minutes to get the pugs outside before I could even put on something more substantial than a big, drafty t-shirt.
Tonight, I've been busy trying to work most of the evening, so I surmise that the pugs have felt somewhat neglected. Throughout the evening, Jewel has periodically waddled (she does that a lot) into the kitchen, eaten a few bites of food, then come back into the living room to sit at my feet and gag loudly like a cat dredging up a big, nasty hairball. (Yes, appetizing, isn't it?) No, she's not ill, I promise. She gags for no reason all the time. She always has. Just not usually at my feet.
Mandolin has been busy lying on the couch and watching the movie I had started earlier. The funny thing is that this movie (Uptown Girls) has a pig in it that periodically runs across the screen oinking emphatically. Mandolin apparently can't abide the oinking. Each time the pig starts to oink and snort, Mandolin bursts off the couch like a cheetah after a leming, rears up to put her front feet onto the television, and barks, whines, howls and snorts at the little oinking pig. (I suspect that she thinks the pig is a long lost cousin or something, mostly because Mandolin snorts as much as any pig ever did snort).
And finally, little Miss Banjo. Moments ago, I turned from my desk and discovered Banjo standing on the coffee table. Doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except staring at me from behind. She wasn't eating anything. She wasn't chewing anything. She wasn't playing with anything. She wasn't sitting down and relaxing her little curly tail. She was just... standing there. Staring at me. Like a goat. Or those freaky ghoulish twins in "The Shining". Just... staring. It was like she was saying, "Hey, betcha didn't known I do this when you're not lookin'. Cool, huh?" It's an odd feeling to find one of one's pugs standing on a piece of furniture and staring at one from behind. Very odd...
The final event of the evening was the often-seen event in my house that I like to refer to as the "pug smackdown". When they're feeling playful, all three of my pugs like to wrestle. I know, I know, most dogs like to wrestle. However, most dogs don't snort and sneeze and spit and hump each other simultaneously while wrestling. I can always tell when the girls are wrestling, even in another room, because the sound of the snorting is so loud. Tonight, I heard the snort-spit-sneeze action going on behind me, and I discovered all three of them in very compromising positions. (On my couch, mind you.) Try to follow along with this: Jewel was behind Banjo, and Banjo was behind Mandolin. Banjo had Mandolin's back leg in her jaws. Mandolin was turned completely around chewing on Banjo's tail while poking Jewel with one paw. Jewel was apparently not happy about any of this and was humping Banjo (yes, *humping*) with all of her might. It was like some sort of bizarre pug menage-a-trois. I managed to stifle my laughter (sort of), yelled "hey, no humping!", and I broke up the smackdown by carting them all outside.
Strange little creatures, they are. Do people with labradors, collies, or chihuahuas face this kind of thing, or is this weird behavior exhibited only by these cute-but-weird little catfish-looking creatures that my boyfriend likes to refer to as "viable alternatives to dogs"?
Note to self: I don't care if they're weird and a bit strange looking. Frankly, it could be argued that I'm a bit weird and strange looking. I love them anyway. They keep life interesting.
P.S. Another smackdown is now underway, and I've yelled "no humping!" for about the 10th time tonight. I'm putting the puglets in their biscuits. Ugh.