Parker The Pug’s Blog

Bringing Parker and Maggie into our home has really made our household feel like a family. Like any little girls our puppies have fallen for their daddy.

Maggie in particular has been Anthony’s little girl since the day she came home. She went right to him when she was put down on the floor and ever since she has been at her happiest when she is getting attention from him. Sitting on his lap ceratainly isn’t a rare thing. Contrast this picture to the picture in our first post about Maggie where she is being held in his hand. She really is a big girl now!

They do like spending time on his lap. However, Parker and Maggie both really enjoy it when their time spent with Anthony is a little bit more horizontal in nature.

Parker also enjoys it when Anthony lays down on the floor and allows her to use him as her climbing frame.

This is one of my faveorite sets of pictures. It perfectly captures the process of Parker becoming so relaxed after climbing on top of Anthony that she can’t help but fall asleep. Notice that Maggie has her place too - asleep between Anthony’s knees.

Going ….

Going ….

Gone!

Parker is a charmer. Her wonderful pug facial expressions are enough to melt anyone’s heart. She also knows exactly how to strike a pose for the camera. She looks different from one picture to another but she always looks cute to us In contrast to Maggie, Parker spent the first few weeks with a breeder that really cared about the breed and it has shown in hwo good her health has been and how well she has progessed through the past months. Except for getting her shots and microchip, Parker hasn’t had a need for a trip to the vet at all. Long may that continue.

Here are some pictures of Parker the Pug looking particuarly foxy for the camera.

She has recently taking to demanding to be allowed to sit on my deskk for a few minutes each morning while I work. It makes it hard to type but has given me some good shots of her hamming it up.

Here is one picture of both of our puppies sitting nicely together. It only lasted for about 10 seconds but I managed to get it on camera. Our babies

Puppies sure do grow fast but Maggie has really had a growth spurt as of late. We are really glad to see how big and strong she is becoming. When we brought her home she was a tiny little thing. To be honest, I wonder if the woman didn’t sell her to us a bit too young. When we picked her up we weren’t that impressed by the standards in which she had been living. The woman’s house smelled very strongly of cat urine and when she brought Maggie out to us she was shaking like a leaf. The woman said she was shaking because she had just given Maggie her first bath. Having since given Maggie many baths that may well be true because she does get very cold afterwards.

However, I don’t think that Maggie had been taught to eat properly. We spent the two weeks right after we had her going between having to feed her one bit of food at a time (as if she didn’t know how to eat) and cleaning up after her having some major digestive issues. She had been to the vet atleast four times in her first two weeks with us. We had worried that we shouldn’t have bought her from the lady given the conditions but I really couldn’t have left her there. Luckily, the shaking hasn’t at all proved to be signs of a timid dog - Maggie is anything but timid!

Like I said, she is growing up really fast. Here are some very recent pictures of Maggie looking her best for the camera. Compare these pictures with the previous pictures and you will see what we mean about her growth spurt.

This is Maggie showing off her latest ‘trick’. I turned around one day and Maggie was standing in the middle of the coffee table. She would only do it when it was just me in the room. So, this time when she did it I took a picture so the other’s would believe me. I felt like she was that singing and dancing frog from Warner Brothers that only ever danced for the one guy.

It has been a really long time since I updated this blog. I have been so busy being a mommy to Parker and Maggie that finding the time to sit down and update has been difficult. However, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been taking loads of pictures of my pug and spaniel babies. So, I am going to do a bunch of updates here. The two puppies really have grown a lot since the last update but I am going to start out with some pictures of when they were still pretty small. Then in the next posts we will jump to what they look like now.

It didn’t take too long for both Parker and Maggie to start to develop their own personalities. Parker is what we call the ’scardey puppy’. She is very confident in an environment that she knows well but doesn’t really like new places. Once she eventually gets to know the new enviroment she is fine but she does take a while to feel comfortable. She is however, very perceptive and has picked up on the patterns of our behaviour very quickly. She learned very early that if it is fairly late at night and I pick up a toy and throw it into their cage that she will very shortly be put into the cage for the night. Parker doesn’t actually mind being in the cage but she doesn’t like the process of going into it. Part of her personality has been that she doesn’t like to miss anything going on around her and it comes across to us that she knows that if we put her into the cage she will be missing some events overnight. So, within a few weeks of Parker being in our home she started to run and hide under the couch the moment I put the toy in the cage.

Here are some pics I took when she ran and hid under the couch when I was trying to put her in for the night.

This became such a nightly routine of trying to lure her out from under the couch that we eventually had to find a way to block off the underside of the couch so she couldn’t get too far underneath when hiding.

Maggie on the other hand, is the cheeky one. When we first brought her home, I said I saw attitude in those eyes and boy was I right. She is a wonderful puppy but she does like to find trouble to get into and has been a real chewer. We have had to block off almost every wire we have in the house - even those we didn’t really know we had - to stop her getting to them. She just sees them as a challenge and she doesn’t want to fail. When there isn’t a wire to chew she teases Parker. Parker really loves it too so they both get something out of it.

Here is an early picture of Maggie sneaking up behind Parker and pulling on her collar.

The one personality trait they both share is their love for their toys. The most popular puppy toys in the house are:

Wacky DucK - Wacky Duck has since become a one legged (lame duck?) because Maggie had taken apart the threaded leg to the point that it was just a bunch of strings. That is simply too dangerous for a puppy (especially a chewer like Maggie) So, I had no choice but to do the opperation.

Punk Monkey - Punk Monkey has been a house faveorite since I brought him home. Sadly, he has also had to have a leg amputated for the same reason as Wacky Duck.

Empty water bottles - this we found out by accident. One day I put a half empty water bottle down on the floor next to the sofa and Parker started barking like mad at it like it was her worst enemy. So, we emptied it out and threw it down for her to sniff around. Well, Parker was still scared of it at first but Maggie jumped right in and started beating it up. Ever since she goes mental when I have an empty water bottle and doesn’t calm down until I let her play with it.

Fuzzy Orange Bone - It squeaks..enough said.

The last few months with Parker the pug and Maggie the Spaniel has been a bunch of hard work but our lives are so much better for having them in it. Plus, how can you not think all the hard work is worth it when you get to look at these faces every morning?