Where the Fack is My Pack?

We got the Pack!  Just three days after being asked to participate in the “Where the Fack is My Pack” Experiment, the Pack arrived on our doorstep. Cody, our Pug, was immediately curious and kept sniffing the box as I opened it, then stood by patiently  as I took a photograph. The Pack came to us from Lulu, a black lab whose owner is Liz Jenkins, another organizer whose company is called A Fresh Space. She lives and works in Tennessee. The Pack came to her from the brilliant mind behind the Where the Fack is My Pack Experiment, Delanie Neville of Quesnel, British Columbia, Canada.

The Back Story on Cody: For years, we’ve wanted a dog. If my kids had their choice, we would have had an 80 to 100 lb. dog about five years ago, but I kept putting it off because I somehow knew that the brunt of responsibility would fall on me. And, let’s face it, dogs are like toddlers because they never grow up and take care of themselves. Good news: You can leave them home alone.

Anyway, it was important for me to choose the right time and the right breed. December of 2008, I met a Pug. Prior to that, I didn’t have an experience with Pugs and although our neighbor down the street had three Pugs, honestly I had no interest. The only thing I knew about Pugs was that they snorted a lot and potentially had breathing issues. Oh, and they drooled a whole lot too. Icky. But the Pug I met in 2008 didn’t drool and rarely snorted. He did snore, but it was endearing. I fell in love!

Months later, when that particular Pug was no longer in my life, we had the neighbor’s Pugs to play with. When their owner would walk them down the cul-de-sac, we’d run out to greet Taz, Sophie and, the newest member to the trio, Monty. It was a Pugapalooza! I expressed my interest in having a Pug to my neighbor and wouldn’t you know, within a week, he reported back that a woman in town was looking for a home for her 3-year-old fawn female Pug. We managed to track down her phone number at the pet store and gave her a call. Turns out, it was a two and half year-old black male.

I made arrangements to go see “Otis” (That was his name when we got him. I’ll explain the change later.) that week, but wasn’t feeling well on the Friday. On Sunday, I called the Pug owner and she told me that she had given the Pug to someone else (the thought of that now just breaks my heart) and they were picking him up that week. I was disappointed, but wrote it off as one of those things that happens for a reason. Perhaps the timing wasn’t right afterall. Well, Friday evening rolled around and I received an unexpected phone call from Cody’s owner. She explained that the couple (in their early 20s) who took Cody “returned” him because he wasn’t getting along with their other dog and she wanted to see if we were still interested. I immediately said, “Yes, of course. Can we come tomorrow?”

Saturday came and I loaded the kids in the car and off we went to meet Cody. It was the day before Mother’s Day 2009. The agreement was that we would take Cody overnight to see how he melded with our family. But, honestly, I knew as soon as we left that he was ours. He became part of our family instantly! That evening at home, he snuggled up with me on my bed, which is where he sleeps 95% of the time. He’s the most easy-going dog and at 25 lbs. (kind of big for a Pug), he’s the consummate lap dog and our best friend!

The Name Change: Otis is a great name for a dog. Ever since the movie Milo & Otis, we’ve met many pets with those names. Otis, however, is not a name I’d want to utter in my house on a regular basis. It’s a nickname of someone who is no longer a fixture in my life (a human!). Therefore, we came up with a name close enough (his previous owner called him “Oty”) so it wouldn’t confuse the dog and close enough to many other names in our family so it would confuse them! (With many, many names in our family that begin with a hard “c” sound, we all wind up calling each other by someone else’s name, so I figured why not throw another one in there!)

The Pack: We experienced a bright sunny November day in New Jersey yesterday, which was a great time to take Cody for a walk on the boardwalk with the Pack! As you can see from the picture, the pack is a bit big for a 25 lb. Pug. We actually thought he might do better “in” the pack, but we made it work. He seemed a bit bothered after about 15 minutes, but he’s a “go with the flow” kind of guy, so he tolerated the experiment. We’re pleased that we were able to take Cody, and the Pack, for a walk on the boardwalk in Spring Lake, New Jersey.

So, the Pack is now headed to Eugene Mah in Charleston, South Carolina.

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4. Fostering a Love of Travel
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