Home Again, Home Again Jiggity-Jig

We’re back! And what a trip it was. Wednesday morning, bright and early, we dropped off Pablo with the sitter. He trotted off into the kitchen in search of treats without a backward glance. Ah gratitude your name is pug.

Then we took to the road, and except for a stretch in Virginia when we hit traffic, it was smooth sailing. In NC, we stayed with K’s brother and sister-in-law and their two darling offspring. Now I am not a big fan of children (as my daughter will attest), but these kids were cute. The girl, M, just turned 5, and holds lofty ambitions. She wants to be an astronaut, a doctor, and a princess when she grows up, and with the energy and will power she possesses, I’m sure she’ll succeed. The boy, O, is a toddler, very sweet and good-natured. Like my nephews at that age, he loves anything with wheels. After our Thanksgiving repast, their parents left them with us while they  took in a movie. After countless games of hide-and-seek and puppet shows, K and I were exhausted, but the children, bless them, were still going strong.

The day after Thanksgiving we visited my sister, T, and her husband, B. As an added bonus I saw my nephew, on break from college. B unfortunately had to head off to work (he works retail and it was Black Friday), but the rest of us had a delicious lunch at a local restaurant. Afterward we went for a much-needed two-hour walk. My sister’s dog, Pupzilla, led the way. Pupzilla is a year or two older than Pablo and still remarkably spry. Here she is standing guard while my nephew sleeps. Note her festive bow.

That night we had a fantastic dinner of Thanksgiving leftovers (B is a wonderful cook) that included all the usual suspects, as well as copious amounts of wine, an apple cobbler, and homemade ice cream. Yum!

We left the next morning, our backs a bit sore after a restless night on a rapidly deflating air mattress, and headed for home. A mere 9 hours later, we pulled into the sitter’s driveway to claim Pablo. Inside there were about seven or so dogs, big and small, all barking. It seemed a madhouse, but  the sitter remarked how much calmer things were now that several other dogs had left! She handed Pablo over to me, exclaiming how much she and her family loved him (naturally). Pablo, however, seemed pretty anxious to leave. He was trembling in my arms and didn’t stop until we were out of the truck and inside. On familiar ground again, he raced around like a maniac, barking for joy.

Like Dorothy said, “Oh, Auntie Em, there’s no place like home.”

Oogy

Fair warning: The two videos below are hard to watch, but worth it. I saw the first one on the website for Ardmore Animal Hospital, which is where we take Pablo. The staff at the hospital saved the life of a dog, badly injured and near death because he had been used as a bait dog. He’d been tied up so that dogs raised to fight could attack him. When the dogs were through, he was left to die. Amazingly he didn’t, although he required extensive surgery to repair his torn-apart face. Recuperating at the hospital, he met a family who fell in love with him and gave him a home.

Oogy (an affectionate  derivative of “ugly”) went through so much suffering, yet what’s most remarkable about him is how loving he is.

Oogy on Oprah:

A book trailer for Oogy

Chain of Lies Now a Podcast

My flash fiction piece “Chain of Lies” was made into a podcast by the good folks at Every Day Fiction. Click here and listen to Matt Cowens with his plummy Aussie accent read it.

Lady Lily

This past Friday was my daughter’s 25th birthday (that’s 175 in dog years, Pablo reminded me), and I took a trip to NYC to visit with her. We had a manicure, ate sushi in a Japanese restaurant, and caught up on each other’s lives. I also got the chance to see my grandkitty, Lady Lily (see above). It was wonderful to spend time with E and also to be back in NYC, my old stomping grounds.

Pug Among the Gnomes

Every Day Fiction: Today’s the Day

Check out today’s flash fiction story by yours truly at Every Day Fiction. No, it doesn’t have a pug in it.

Why Did the Pug Cross the Road?

Your guess is as good as mine. To see what’s on the other side? To sniff a neighbor’s lawn? To piddle on a peony?

On his walks Pablo always has definite ideas about what route to take. And if you try to direct him elsewhere, he goes into the classic pug knee-locked stance and won’t budge. Most of the time I have no objection to him acting as tour guide. After all, it’s his walk, not mine.

There is, however, one particular route I try to discourage and that’s when he makes a right turn to W Road, a busy street with a steady stream of traffic whizzing both ways and no traffic light. Yet  sometimes, for whatever reason, Pablo gets it in his skull that he must cross W Road. He does this by lunging headfirst into the blacktop, oblivious to traffic. By now I know enough to hold him back, but the first few times we had some close calls. When there is a lull in vehicles we dash across the road. Then Pablo sniff a hedge or two, piddles on some leaves, and you guessed it, wants to head back. Another mad dash, and it’s safely back home. Until next time.

Lapping It Up and Shaking It Down

Today’s NY Times has an article on the physics behind cat lapping. A researcher at MIT watched his cat drinking from its bowl one morning and wondered how the cat conquered gravity to drink the liquid. Like dogs and many other carnivores, cats aren’t able to suck up liquids as we humans do. Dogs solve the problem by forming a cup with their tongue and ladling liquid into their mouths. It was assumed that cats used the rough spikes on their tongues to draw in liquid, but according to the study this is not the case. Instead, as reported in the Times, a cat’s lapping method “depends on its instinctive ability to calculate the balance between opposing gravitational and inertial forces.” Huh?

It seems a cat’s tongue darts out (at four laps per second, too fast for the human eye to catch) and the tip just touches the surface, creating a column of liquid that the cat then pulls into its mouth.

Another recent scientific study looked at dogs (and other mammals) to find out the speed at which they shake themselves dry. As reported in Wired, a group of physicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that the bigger the animal, the slower it needs to shake. For instance, a labrador retriever oscillates at 4.3 Hz, a mouse at 27 Hz, and a bear at a mere 4 Hz. To read more about the Wet Dog Shake project and to see a video of animals shaking themselves dry, click here.

So there you have it. Two more mysteries of science solved. Now if scientists could only get to work on the one that baffles me: Why do cats always plop down on your newspaper when you’re reading?

Decoding Dogs

I watched a very informative NOVA show about dogs and genetics last night on PBS. Called Dogs Decoded, it covered a range of topics from how dogs evolved to how they communicate with humans. While a lot of it wasn’t new to me, for instance how wild foxes can be domesticated just like dogs, some was. There is an amazing scene of a border collie living in Germany that knows more than 300 words and that can retrieve an object in another room by looking at a two-dimensional image of it. Overall the entire show was very well presented and the focus was on the science and not on showing dogs being adorable (although of course they were). And a pair of pugs were among the pets featured!

If you can’t catch it on TV, watch it on-line here. The site also has some cool interactive features, such as trying your hand at interpreting barks and matching breeds to where they originated.

Picture Book Pals: Chick ‘n’ Pug

As a children’s book writer and editor, I’m always on the lookout for top-notch picture books. When the book features a pug, well, I’m hooked. Just reel me in. Chick ‘n’ Pug by writer/illustrator Jennifer Sattler is such a book. The story begins with Chick is in the henhouse reading his favorite book, The Adventures of Wonder Pug, for the 127th time. Desperate for his own adventure, Chick sets off and comes across a sleeping pug, whom he takes to be a real Wonder Pug. Like most pugs, this story’s pug is more interested in sleep than adventure. Chick tries to rouse him to action, but Pug soon topples back into dreamland. In the end, Chick proves to be the hero when he chases off a feline intruder.

The illustration in this book are wonderful. They capture pugs perfectly, right down to the way they scratch. The story I was less than thrilled with (and not just because a chick shows up a pug). Like many picture books these days, it had a lot of tongue in cheeks asides meant more for the adult reading the story than the listening child. And, as an editor, I caught a big boo boo. Contemplating life in a henhouse, Chick says, “I mean, laying eggs all day? Pecking in the dirt? What kind of life is that?” Except Chick would never be laying eggs since he’s a he not a she. Seems like the pug wasn’t the only one sleeping on the job.

Copyright Jennifer Sattler