A Letter From Gus

Dear Frank and Bean,

How are things up north? It is very sunny here and I love to chase all of the squirrels in my new backyard. I wanted to tell you about this super neat treat machine that my mom and dad brought home. It was sort of broken for the first year, and mom and dad spent a LOT of time trying to fix it when it made loud noises. But NOW! Oh boy. All I have to do is follow it around and sit under its chair and there is a constant flow of treats dispensed!

AND its favorite game is to dig through my bin of dog kibble, put some pieces in a bowl, and then dump the bowl out for me! Mom and dad don't like that game so much. I've enclosed a picture of me and the machine, which is just about to dispense a delicious piece of cinnamon toast, in case you want to look for one of your own:

Pretty spiffy, huh?!

Anyhow, I hope that you are well. Please come visit soon and you can have some treats of your very own! Mom and dad are even thinking of bringing a new treat machine home in December just in time for Christmas! Neat!

Much Love,
Your cousin Gus!

Yum...

Oh Frank! You look so forlorn staring out the window at the arrival of the doom and gloom of winter...

Whatever can we do to cheer you up?
What's that you say? Prepare some warm ginger snaps with fresh whipped cream?

And let you lick the egg-beater?


What an excellent suggestion!

Allow me to share the feeding frenzy which followed, an incident sure to strike fear in the heart of whipped dairy products everywhere....




Oh my.


Frank. How rather undignified.
Though you certainly appear to be less forlorn.

Bean! Fashion Advisor.

Sometimes, after a restless night's sleep and with a long day ahead, the last thing a lady wants to do is figure out a stylish yet sensible outfit for the day. Such was my mood as I sat pondering how to acceptably wear the closest allowable thing to sweatpants (black leggings and a large soft sweater) to work. Overwhelmed by such a tough decision, I forgot to close my closet and proceeded to the couch in order to drink some coffee and contemplate the dismaying state of the union compliments of CNN.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a somewhat suspicious flash of black and pink...

Why BEAN! You know that you are not supposed to go seeking entertainment in my closet!
And yet, you seem to have brought me a bright pink sporty Puma ballet flat. Indeed! The perfect thing to accessorize, spruce up, and disguise the comfort of today's camouflaged sweat pant wear!

Voila! Bean! Fashion Advisor.

I wonder if I could rent him out to Vogue?

Don't get too proud there Bean, you still get a scolding for pulling a shoe out of the closet...

Frank would like to add, as a side note, that he feels quite strongly that ANY outfit can be smartly accessorized with a fine (or thick, depending on your level of devotion) dusting of black pug hair. Further more, the best way to achieve this look is to give your handsome, one eyed pug a large spooning, and possibly a Kong filled with peanut butter, anytime before leaving the house.

Thank you Frank, a very informative suggestion indeed.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Grandma Railey! We wish that we were there to give you this delightful little pumpkin to celebrate your October birthday!

Love,

Frank and Bean!

How rude...

... of us to disappear so suddenly in the middle of Frank's vacation... I fear that work began to present a bit of a time constraint. BUT, here we are back, with the photos loaded the day that I disappeared, continuing our vacation at the Tillamook Cheese Factory! Upon arrival we were dismayed, though not surprised, to find that pugs were not, in fact, welcome at all. Sad times. Unfortunately, to say that Frank and Bean are hardy car dogs would be a gross inflation of the truth, which is that to actually see them waiting in the car a passerby would be forced to believe that they were abused, abandoned, and dying, and had been so not actually for the 5 minutes necessary to run into a non-dog friendly establishment, but possibly for a the better part of their lives.

As the temperatures were quite lovely and cool, though far from cold, we decided to try a new technique leaving the pugs in the car with a decoy...

Step one... open the tasty creamy peanut butter brought along for just such an instance....

step two, insert said peanut butter into 1 puppy Kong per pug...

The peanut butter Kong! This did in fact distract the boys long enough, not for us to take a tour, but at least for us to return with a delicious and calcium rich ice cream cone.

Oh Frank! Yum Yum!

Vacation #4

Ah! There is Frank! Frolicking along a grassy path! And where, the pugs were so eager to learn, did the path finally end?

I do not believe that I would be exaggerating should I say that a wee bit of euphoria was felt by all when the first beach was spotted. Frank is well acquainted with a wide open beach, but for Bean this was a first.
Here is how the next 45 minutes went:

Oh, what tired and sandy pugs there were when we finally got back to the car! And, in watching the delight with which Frank chased and ran with The Bean I was completely assured for first time ever that a seeing eye puppy was in fact a good idea.

Vacation #3

Time for everyone's favorite game! FIND FRANK!

This path, which I am sad to say may help all of you cheat in finding the handsome pugs, leads to tomorrows update - oh aren't you eager to see what's there?!

AND, Frank, and Bean here especially, would like to say:


Happy Birthday Grandpa Railey!

Vacation #2 - Travel Arrangements

Once we had settled on a road trip as the adventure, appropriate riding accommodations were needed. Now, let me first say, that I recommend having one's dogs behind a gate, in a crate, or belted in - which is what we do in town. However, for the road trip, we did allow that the pugs could have free roam of their bed...

Oh! Doesn't that look COZY!

This, with both pugs content in the back, lasted approximately 10 minutes, followed by this...

and this...

and this, as Bean finally settled down...

then this...

and finally, this....

Wait. Let us get a different view of that in case someone didn't quite see...

Yep. Frank finally got his way. Well, almost, he of course really wanted a lap all to himself.
Oh Frank. What to say?

Oh! And please let me say, after some of Frank's favorite readers wrote in, that YES raisins are, in fact, as bad for dogs, if not worse over time, that chocolate. Best to stick with Ginger Snaps and Peanut Butter indeed!

Vacation #1

The beginning of the Vacation Road Trip was the arrival of Grandma Railey. Frank, having now experienced about 5 years of his grandmother's visits, immediately went in search of the treats which he felt certain were sure to arrive.

He was not disappointed as first appeared some homemade oatmeal raisin cookies (I would just like to say that I prefer chocolate chip, I was told that my wish was overridden because the pugs could not have chocolate)...

...followed most speedily by our new favorite toys.

Please allow me to introduce the Hedgehog Babies 1 and 2. Frank, I would like to proudly state, has learned which is which, quite a feat for an almost blind one eyed pug. Oh Frank! You are so clever!
Bean, on the other hand, when asked to bring a Hedgehog Baby of any kind, generally shows up with something like this:

Bean! That is not, in fact, a Hedgehog at all!

It's a good thing he's cute.

Well, the sad news is that summer has come to a grey and gloomy end. As you may have noticed, this has also brought to a halt to the summer blog schedule. But fear NOT! In order to punctuate the end of summer, Frank's grandmother flew in for a mini vacation road trip, and guess who was invited along!

That's right! So for the next week, or more, we will be providing a daily photo of Frank and Bean's Mini Vacation to the Coast! Oh MY!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment:
"Grandma Arrives"

Oh, and in the meantime, you might want to know that everyone's favorite one eyed pug is now famous world wide, compliments of his Godmother and BSS (who created the extraordinary FRANK sticker!)

Frank in Prague!!! Does anyone know how to say Oh FRANK! You are so handsome in Czech?