Sid always gets a treat (or three) when he comes inside from his walk.  His post-walk treat is his top priority when we come inside, meaning he won’t go straight for the water bowl no matter how badly he needs to refresh and cool down.  This lack of regard for his own health and safety is slightly terrifying to me; he gets soooo absurdly pumped up about food that I’m pretty sure, someday in the near future, the combination of extreme treat anticipation with his high body temperature and mild dehydration is going to cause him to have a heart attack before I can even open his pouch of venison jerky.  So, I’ve been mulling over various plans to provide him with a treat that is both deliciously satisfying and cooly refreshing.

And thus we present to you Pug Slope’s Famous Frozen…Pump-sicles?  Pumpkin-Pops?  Frozen Pumpkin Cubes?  Whatever!

Completely organic and additive-free – perfect for the dog who’s allergic to everything!!

A refreshing and healthy treat for ravenous pugs and their panda-bear friends!!

Helps promote regularity!!

Your dog will get crazy eyes for this ice-cold pumpkin surprise!!

But…pumpkin cubes are not an instant-gratification-type of treat.  They’re currently in the freezer, slowly solidifying in their custom compartmentalized tray.  One must be patient to enjoy frozen pumpkin.

Lucky for Sid, the most impatient pug in all the land, the whole can of pumpkin wouldn’t fit in the ice tray.  So Sid got to test out some room-temperature pumpkin in order to ensure that this orange goo was up-to-snuff, treat-wise.

Apparently pumpkin is so lip-smacking good, it’s worth storing a few morsels on your muzzle.  You know, for later.

Tomorrow: We unleash the pumpkin cubes!

The ninth installment of TWISB and apparently Payton and Sid are on the same wavelength today.

NOTE: Sid was actually standing like this, with his head propped up on the Trader Joe’s bag, for about 45 seconds before I had time to grab my phone and start recording.

I can’t believe it’s already been a year since we packed all of our belongings into a Penske truck and drove from Los Angeles to Brooklyn. This may come as a surprise to you, but Sid is a great traveler.  The cabin of that truck became our cozy little home for about eight days, and Sid was happy as a clam.  Seriously.

We put a rubbermaid container between the two bucket seats and put his bed on top so he could be up at our level.  His water dish sat on the dash between our cup holders, and his Petco safety strap kept him buckled in but gave him a little freedom to move around.

Oh, and we quickly learned that the only way to avoid mass mayhem on the highway was to store his food / treat supply inside the rubbermaid container he was perched upon.  You gotta learn some lessons the hard way.

Click through for a few photos from the first days of our trip:

When Sid lays down, he really lays down. We’re talking flat. If he were ever in a limbo competition, he’d surely get first prize.

We did a pretty good job avoiding the heat when it rolled in last week, but on Sunday we made an error in our timing of Sid’s morning “business meeting.”  Taking Sid out for his walk at 7am seemed like a great way to avoid the long-simmering heat of the late-morning / early-afternoon hours, but our half-awake brains didn’t think about the fact a 7am walk meant that he’d need to go out for his evening business around 5 or 6pm at the latest – – hours that had been among the hottest of the preceding days.  With a morning walk that early, there was no way Sid was going to make it until sundown, so we started brainstorming a solution that would provide Sid relief from both the heat and his bladder.

Luckily, we already polled our (amazingly resourceful) pug readers on the topic of keeping cool back in June.

Mochi had suggested a cooling vest, which is brilliant, but we never got around to actually buying one before we encountered the moment when we desperately needed it.

Payton said something about a Frogg Togg.  I’m still not quite sure what that is or what it means.  I Googled it and found some people-clothes for camping…regardless, it was still something we’d need to buy.  We needed a NOW solution.  Always at the last minute over here at Pug Slope!

Noodles suggested freezing a wet Sham-Wow and draping it over Sid’s back.  Hmm.  Now, we (sadly) don’t own any Sham-Wows, but we do own hand towels!  And a faucet!  And a freezer!

And that is how Sid became the dorkiest coolest pug in Brooklyn:

Sid didn’t let his dorky accessories bring him down, though, even when we ran into some cooling-accessory-free (i.e., normal) dogs on 7th Ave.  He looked those dogs in the eye, lifted his leg up high, and acted like wearing a frozen hand towel on your back while peeing was the new hot thing.  When he was done with his business, he trotted over to them and said, “My mom says there’s nothing cooler than safety,” which is a decidedly un-cool thing to say, but I’m not going to be the one to tell him that.  I’d rather he avoid heat stroke than win homecoming king.

Then we came across a fire hydrant spraying cool water into the street and onto the sidewalk.  We tried to turn this into a Pug Slope photo op, but Sid’s new-found confidence and strong regard for safety kept him from playing along.  “Dad, you of all people should know that water is a leading cause of lost marbles in flat-faced dogs,” proclaimed Sid. Sigh.

So, Sid wouldn’t play in the spraying water, but we managed to get him to stand near the hydrant for a few quick shots.

And, when we got home, we followed Sid’s Mimi’s advice of putting a frozen water bottle in the dog bed.  Like I said, the coolest pug in Brooklyn.

If you thought water drove Sid a little bonkers, wait until you see what happened this weekend.

Due to insanely high temperatures in NYC, we tried to stay inside as much as possible with the A/C cranked. Our apartment is super tiny so it’s not unusual for us to get a little restless – including Sid.

I was sitting at my desk when I heard Sid behind me, frantically spinning around and smacking his lips. I didn’t know what was going on until something buzzed right past me.

I don’t know how a fly got inside (all our windows are closed due to the A/C) but not only did the fly get inside the apartment, he also got inside Sid’s head. Yes, Sid tends to fixate.

It reminded me of this familiar scene from the Karate Kid:

Luckily I was able to grab my phone and record Sid’s uncanny fly-catching technique. Although he lacked the finesse that Mr. Miyagi possessed, he had twice the determination.

It’s 104° in Park Slope today!  Wayyy too hot for a pug to be playing outside.

Luckily, we’ve been sitting on never-before-seen footage of Sid taking a refreshing dip in the Prospect Park dog beach.

Much like how Noodles freaks out over bubbling brooks, Sid turns into el pug-o loco whenever he goes into the calm waters of a man-made pond.  Instead of having fun and swimming like the “normal” dogs, Sid becomes mesmerized / confused by the liquidy depths.  He essentially loses his mind while trying to get the acorns and berries that lie not on the surface of the water, but on the concrete surface below.  Also, you’ll notice in the beginning of this clip, that he also seems to think that his legs have disappeared.  It’s all very confusing and disorienting, but if anybody’s got the determination to pull something “edible” from the depths of the dog beach, it’s Sid.