A Note To The Pug

Dear Sonny The Pug:

You and I need to talk.

Last night when you were sitting on the love seat with me and violently, without warning, attacked the throw pillow in my lap, you know your half-toothed chomps mostly missed the pillow and mostly struck me. You were biting that pillow, shaking it ferociously and it didn't bother you one bit that you were shaking my hand like a rag doll and biting my leg. You knew it was happening. In your mind Mama = throw pillow. Equally good for the gumming and shaking and de-stuffing.

And despite my repeated attempts to get you to please stop, you ignored me and continued to bite and shake and growl and play like you were a brand new baby puppy just home for the pet store. While it was a beautiful, sweet moment to get to watch you play like that – so free and happy and youthful – it was not okay that you made me your giant chew toy/bitch. I think the worse part is that you knew what you were doing and you didn't even care in the least bit about any pain or discomfort I may have experienced.

People are going to say: "Why didn't you just put him on the floor?" Well, I did, gentle readers and surly pug. I threw your pudgy ass down on the plastic/woodlike flooring, but that's not the way Sonny The Pug rolls. No, no, no. You're too smart for that. If I put you on the floor then try to ignore you, immediately and unrelentingly you will start chewing my shoelaces or pulling the blanket off my feet or start eating a Wii remote. So rather than divert my attention to solely watching you terrorize the game room, I chose to throw your little butt up on the couch with me. Puggo, I look at it as taking the lesser of two evils.

It took about an hour – a solid god damned hour of this abuse – before I finally made your daddy stop working on his laptop and put you on the couch with him. And, of course, you curled up and went to sleep with your head on this leg and I'm left slobbered up and probably infected with some kind of incurable disease that I caught because you bit me repeatedly with those nasty, rotten three teeth of yours. As my mind is processing this and surveying the damage to all my throw pillows, the Aggie, pets your ears gently, the way you like it and has the nerve to say to me through a devilish smile: "Gee, don't know what you're griping about."

It was at this point that I realized Deuce was sitting still, being stroked in your Grumpy's lap and that I usually don't notice what you're doing because usually I'm busy trying to distract the Silky from tearing curtains from the window or eating the crown molding. You, Sonny, are old and sneaky and really, really bad in your own right. And sometimes because we live in the loony bin, I don't even notice your antics -- which are considerable since you're an old, fat Pug. (Oh, and I'd be doing you an injustice if I didn't congratulate you on your ever-growing hatred for the cat. Really, its quite impressive how much you loathe her.)

But I digress... I think the point has gotten lost somewhere here in all this is that I'm not your personal stinky pillow, I'm your Mama and sometimes I wish you'd love me as much as you do your daddy. Sometimes I wish you'd just give me the stinky kisses not bang me around like a screen door in a hurricane. Think we can work on that? Just a little bit?

Love,
Momma Pug