Lulu Wanders the Beach in Provincetown

Dino and Lulu in the Best Possible Late-Day Light

OK so I might cheat just a little bit here…getting you hooked thinking there could be something sage that is about to be said about “dogs.”  I admit I cheat…it is pugs I want to talk about and those of you who own pugs know they are not mere dogs!  And the specific pug in question is that dear Lulu.  I owned her or rather she owned me for ten years.  Her fur was like a bunny rabbit, and when she was young, I thought she looked just like Bette Davis! She wore pearls and a leopard-print pillbox hat with a scarf  to match…for the holiday season from Thanksgiving on, we dropped the leopard in favor of Christmas red…hat and scarf, of course!  For all that Wally was a thug…Lulu was a lady.  It is easy to understand why they became so bonded to one another.  I like to believe Wally needed her for the table manners part, and she needed to realize, as only Wally knew, it was OK for a pug to jump the queue when waiting a cab  in Paris.  The two are off together again: she a healthy sighted pug with all her teeth and Wally has full use of all four legs and no grey muzzle.  I think they must be curled up in some heavenly doughnut bed or maybe they are running free with other pugs, tails out flat, as they chase one another and somewhere in all this are bowls of water and hidden dog treats and grass to lie in and trees to water.  And may it be so for all our dogs (pugs or otherwise) who have shed their lives here and are having the best ever romp in this delicious imagined world.