Look at that face. It barely has a nose. That face makes a lot of noise. We call those noises, snarfles. I had never had a Pug before The Bean. I had no idea what to expect. I certainly didn't expect all of the licking. The snoring. The odd noises that come out of this sweet little dog. She makes me smile and laugh every day.
One night, I took the pug and the cocker spaniel to Mr. Misha's band practice. The band practices by themselves during the week, but on the weekends, friends, families, kids and a dogs all gather at The Shop. A potluck is set up, a fire is started outside in the fire pit. The kids and dogs run through the vineyards. The adults drink wine and visit. The band plays. It is quite lovely.
Because my schedule is so screwy, I don't usually make it to practice. The dogs have never been. But the drummer of the band made a specific request that I bring the pug, so I got us all ready and we hit the road. I took my BFF Deb with me and as I drove up, my Mom showed up with her dog. Two of my co-workers were there with their kids. One of them brought her Great Dane. It looked like it was going to be a blast.
The Cocker Spaniel got so very excited to see her Daddy on stage, that she raced across the room and bounded up on stage. I couldn't keep her off. She had to be put on a leash. When we would step outside the building, I would take her off the leash and the girls would race through the vineyards, sniffing around and enjoying the wide open space. During one of the band breaks, just before the sun went down, one of the band wives came up to me and said, "Come with us, we are going to go see the piglets." Ok!
Two weekends before, all the 4-H kids in Napa picked out their pigs. They care for them through the spring and summer and then take them to the Napa Town and Country Fair at the end of the summer to show them and then auction them off. The piglets are so cute at that age, still relatively small and curious. So I grabbed my mom and trodded off to the pig pen with about a dozen kids and all the dogs.
My mom's Jack Russell and my Cocker Spaniel just wanted to run. They took a few sniffs and then it was back to the vineyards to race around. But the pug was in love. A pen filled with little beasts, around her size, with flat noses and making similar sounds! I pretty sure in her brain she was saying, "I HAVE FOUND MY PEOPLE!" She shoved her head completely through the opening in the fence and got snout to snout with a little black pig. They snarfled, sniffed and snorted. Both were wagging their curly tails.
I heard the band starting up again and turned to head back. The Pug wouldn't budge. She wanted to stay with the pigs. I had to pick her up to get her out of the pig pen. It was hysterical. She whined (it almost sounded like a pig squeal) all the way back to the barn. While we were talking about the Pugs reaction to the piglets, one of the kids came up and said, "Maybe it's because their names are so close? It's just one vowel difference between a pig and a pug!"
