Updates - Round 3

After having a blast on our honeymoon, it was back to work which was a mixed feeling. Frankly, I think if I ever take more than three weeks off of a job, I may as well just stay off. Especially if Hawaii is involved. :)

One thing that we'd been wanting to do for a while but hadn't since we knew we wouldn't have the time during the wedding planning and celebration was get a dog.

Bonnie & Clyde
I grew up with Weimaraners and my dad grew up with Weimaraners. My wife's family kept King Charles Cavalier Spaniels and she herself had a Beagle several years back. We were limited by the size of our backyard... erm, patio... and the fact that we lived in a nice-sized, but still relatively small townhouse. Leaving the dogs outside was not an option because there was no shelter and we couldn't install a dog-door insert in the sliding glass door because our backyard was right on a cul-de-sac where one of my previous roommates cars had once been stolen.

So small dogs, apartment dogs were in our crosshairs. Weimaraners, though beautiful dogs, are large and need a large yard to run around and be active in. My father also had a bad run with his final 2 dogs, both of which had multiple medical issues and died long before their time. Beagles apparently eat anything and everything and are highly destructive when left alone in the house. Cavaliers are cute, but my wife had had 7 of them at one time as a kid and that was enough for her for a while.

After much research, we decided on a Pug. They're small, cute in an ugly way that's hard to describe, and supposedly perfect for apartment living. We found a breeder in East County San Diego and drove out there on a Friday night to see her litter. She had 4 left of the original 6: three males and one female.

Our original intention was to get 1 dog, but then we realized how lonely the dog would be while we were at work and figured since they're small, we should be able to manage 2 dogs pretty well. (Yeah, right! I'm praying we never have twins!) I'd always had male dogs and female cats (that *is* the way God intended, right?) so we decided to get 2 males and my wife suggested we name them Han and Chewie after the characters in Star Wars. However, the little girl of the litter stole my wife's heart and we ended up getting a male and a female.

We brought them home and this is the first picture we took of them. They passed out on the couch after the long ride home. It's hard to believe now that they were ever this small.

Naming them turned out to be a challenge. We tried to think of famous boy/girl duos that would fit their personalities. The list got pretty long at times but eventually we settled on Bonnie and Clyde. We get a lot of strange looks when we call to them singly; who names their dog "Clyde" after all, but when people hear both names they generally think it's really cute.

Not to be an over-proud papa, but I have to say that there are some ugly pugs out there and I think Bonnie and Clyde are pretty cute all things considered. They're almost full grown now and rather large for pugs. Clyde had some eye issues that are a whole series of posts in themselves, but he's fine now and not too much worse for wear.

They're a lot of work but a lot of fun. Someone once told us that with a Pug in your life, you'll always have laughter and we have to agree completely.