I took Sid out for a walk as usual. And as his usual self, he was being a little bit stubborn and refused to do his business. I took him around another block to see if he would finally cave in but no luck. He just kept sniffing leaves and then moving on.

About five minutes later I noticed him “funny walking”. He did have on a t-shirt, his harness, and collar which sometimes upsets his equilibrium, so I bent down, re-adjusted everything and proceeded to get back to the walk. The funny walking continued. His right-rear leg was not making contact with the ground. I tried to look at his foot to see what was going on but he refused to sit still for a second so I could check him out.

I carried him back to the apartment to get a closer look and his foot pad looked really weird. Jenn said one of his toes had split down the middle. Great – another trip to the vet (Sid must not have been satisfied with November’s multiple visits). Well, I craned in for a closer look and realized the split section was not Sid’s toe but instead a nut shell that was the exact same color and size as Sid’s toe. It had gotten stuck over one of his toes like a little cap. Below is a photo of said nut shell.

The shell just popped right off and Sid was back to normal. Jenn and I breathed a sigh of relief as another potential vet visit had been averted.

This is the face of an evil genius:

I was never under any illusion as to who was calling the shots in this house, but damn this pug is sneaky.

One of the many things we do to keep Sid’s ego in check is enforce a strict “Sid sleeps in Sid’s bed” policy.  We’ve gotten lax about it here and there – he’s such a good snuggler – but after a night or two of sleeping in our bed he starts prancing around the apartment like he owns the place and then the next thing you know he’s forcefully sneezing, stomping his little legs and jerking his head towards the fridge in a hilariously misguided attempt to dictate his own feeding schedule (Sid’s ideal feeding schedule = all food, all the time).

Recently, though, Sid realized that at a certain point in the night, Brian and I are both unconscious (because we’re sleeping, duh).  So, Sid began sneaking up into our bed in the middle of the night.  Brian, being a light sleeper, would immediately send Sid back down to his own bed, and I’d be none the wiser.

Well, apparently Sid noticed that while Brian wakes up easily, I sleep like a rock.  For the past week or two I’ve been waking up around four in the morning with this twenty-two pound nimrod SLEEPING ON MY BACK.

That’s right, he bypasses the Brian-threat by walking down to the end of the bed and jumping directly onto my side of the mattress, where he then proceeds to flaunt his ability to concoct evil schemes by SLEEPING DIRECTLY ON TOP OF ME.

Don’t you look at me like that, little man.  I know what you’re up to.

Yesterday, we experienced our first flurries of the year and Sid experienced his first flurries ever. Don’t worry, even though Sid was born and bred in Southern California, he has plenty of winter outerwear. Above, he is “getting down” in his blue fleece cape. He’s also got a red fleece jumper, a brown puffy coat, and some Christmas sweaters, which I’m sure he’ll be sporting for you in the next couple weeks.

The Christmas tree is up, the radiator is scorching, the pug is bundled – bring on the snow!

My childhood friend Angelica has a precocious little “silverback” pug named Bea Arthur. When Angelica and her fiance, Marco, got married in October, Jenn and I were stumped as to what would be a good wedding present for them since they’re both really unique people (I mean, they have a pug named Bea Arthur. Come on).

In a serendipitous turn of events, Jenn happened to stumble upon the website of the local pug rescue, Curly Tail Pug Rescue, and discovered that one of their volunteers does hand-painted portraits of your dog in exchange for a donation to the rescue. Not only would this be a great gift for our friends, but it would also help the shelter out. Win-win! After seeing some of the artist’s sample work, we couldn’t resist.

Sid’s immune system is a bit sensitive.  No, actually, it’s very sensitive.  Like, young-John-Travolta-in-a-plastic-bubble sensitive.

Because of his wacky immune system, he once came down with kennel cough after taking two sips from a communal water bowl while hiking at Griffith Park.

His wacky immune system is also to blame for his intense, year-round environmental and food-based allergies.

This dog is allergic to everything.

For real.  He’s had two blood tests done in his short little life to determine what exactly it is that he’s allergic to, and the results of both tests indicated that, well, he’s allergic to:

• the Earth
• everything that grows on the Earth
• pretty much everything that lives on the Earth.

Trees, plants, weeds, grass, fleas, cats, dust, chicken, turkey, beef, wheat, oats, rice, corn – if it’s organic matter, he’s probably allergic to it.

Allergies in dogs don’t present themselves the way they do in humans.  

This is an example of Sid doing one of his many cute faces. We call this one the “flap flip” because it’s caused by the side flaps of his face getting flipped up onto his his lower lip or lower teeth. This usually happens after a yawn. Or when he’s feeling bratty and wants to give us ‘tude.

Sid has been begging me to make Pug Slope look better so he told me to get some books from the library. Look for some cosmetic updates to the site in the next few weeks (hopefully I can get them done before the book is due!). How do you like the new seasonal banner photo for a start?