It’s January. It’s freezing outside. My son is in a “NO PICTURES! phase. I’m trying to take photos everyday to stay limber, so you get pugs. Whisper to be exact.

Stamp literally jumped up right after that photo to join Whips. She has a crazy vertical leap and can’t stand to be left out of whatever Whisper is doing.

Truth be told, John and I are such nerds, we could do this all day. We LOVE taking photos of our dogs. We have been taking photos of them since we started dating. I’m so lucky I married a guy with such a soft heart for dogs, because these two were a handful when we first met.

If you don’t mind, I have a bit of a backstory here….

I got the pugs when Andy, my late husband, (can you guys just tell me when you know who Andy is, so I can quit saying, “My late husband”) was going through radiation. Radiation really sucks, and gets worse the more you do, so we were looking for something to cheer us up during that difficult time. We got the pugs and we were OBSESSED with them right away. Oh my gosh, we had so much fun with those dogs. When we had to move to Minnesota for Andy’s stem cell transplant and be away from the pugs for months, we would lay on the couch together and cry, we missed them so much. (Funny, I think we cried more about missing the pugs than over the transplant process.) When we returned home, Andy would sit on in his comfy chair and the pugs would curl up on his shoulders like cats. The pugs were such a big part of our life together, that when he passed, we had their paw prints etched on his headstone. (I’m sure it sounds crazy, but they are really beautiful, actually.)

So when Andy passed, I wasn’t taking care of myself, let alone the two pugs. I was up all night long, sleeping all day and when the pugs had to go out, I would just open the door and let them out. I would forget I let them out until I would hear a ring at the doorbell. I would open the door to see my neighbor holding Whisper with the most pathetic look on both of their faces. They would say, “Betsy, Whisper was in the street…again.” Ugh. It was awful. To say I just didn’t have my crap together during my grief was an understatement. It’s a miracle they survived my initial grief without getting hit by a car. They developed all sorts of bad habits too. They were basically regressing to puppies again with how totally out of it I was.

When John came on the scene he was introduced to two NEUROTIC and messed up dogs. (and I was certainly a vision of mental health!) John was amazing. He crate trained them again, which was a loud process of LOTS of barking. He potty trained them again and started them on their 3 walk a day regime. Honestly, it was just one of the many things John did to help me rebuild my life after losing Andy.

I can’t believe I married two men that love these pugs as much as I do. It’s really an awesome thing. Actually, when John and I got married, we had the pugs in the wedding with us. I know, that sounds like something totally wacko. We didn’t do it to be cutesy. We truly felt like the pugs were a part of my life with Andy, and having them there, it was symbolic of John accepting all of my past and blending with my future.

So these dogs mean A LOT to us. So we take a lot of photos of them. That’s why they end up on the blog a lot.