The Ballad of Johnny & June—Verse 2
Four Pugs
Previously, we had been persuaded to foster an old pair of pugs—Johnny Cash and June Carter. In this verse, we learn a little more about each of them.
Big JC was a mighty little barrel of a boy, and used his relative mass to assert himself within the new pack. Sure, he might be devoted to Little JC. He might even be lost without her. But if a hand was offered for the patting of a head, he would steamroller her and anyone else out of the way to get to it. This happened every time anyone paid any attention to Little JC.
He had the face of a kindly old bear; the body of a bulldog; and the temperament of a spoiled three year old who wanted you all to himself.
It’s true that he took a little time to come around to us, his unexpected new family. But once he did, he leaned hard into us—literally and figuratively. From not being interested in any show of affection, he started to push to the front of the hug line whenever it spontaneously formed. He was the one who would accompany each of us when we wandered out of the living room. No visit to the garage, to the mailbox, or to the bathroom took place without Big JC being there. If we ever thought we’d lost Big JC, we learned to just look behind us. I mean right behind us, practically on our heels. There he was.
We found that Big JC liked to perch on the back of our sofa, which is quite a feat considering his size, but he did it. Like most large dogs I’ve met, he refused to accept that he wasn’t a lapdog. Inevitably, there followed some lap crushing and severe genital bruising before we were able to adapt to his non-negotiable requirements. A 35lb lapdog is never an easy proposition, but once he learned that he was allowed that close to his humans, he snuggled regularly. And we, despite the bruises and lack of oxygen, snuggled him right back.
He was remarkably controlled at times; and remarkably not so at others. He was, for instance, eerily well-trained for bedtime. He wandered into his crate and settled down with zero drama. But no one should ever try to take his food. Not even Jordan. When giving Big JC treats, we learned to present as little of our hand as possible as a target. He would attempt to swallow it all. But he was also a quitter. No, maybe that’s too harsh. Not a quitter . . . but if he didn’t get what he wanted, he’d wander a little way away, drop down to his stomach in a most dramatic way, and then watch you, sullenly. And then he’d sleep.
JC needed to be first at everything. First to be greeted in the morning, first to be fed (whichever bowl is put down first was automatically his bowl), first out the back door to the yard, first back in. He was an old, slow pug until there was a line to be in, and then he found energy we would never otherwise have known he had.
With Little JC being so small, getting to give her any attention when Big JC was around was a challenge. The only way was to pick her up and put her on my lap. Which I did. And then she didn’t want to get down again. So she stayed there as I took meetings, typed emails, did all the other sexy things a worker-from-home did in the course of a day. And, yes, of course . . . at that point she gained a little part of my heart. But, I reminded her, the pooping needed to continue to happen outside or this relationship was not built to last.
She was, perhaps more than anything, a wanderer (although she was an Olympic-level napper). She loved to take a diversion in an entirely different direction to where everyone else was going. Mostly, we would find her shouting furiously at the fridge, presumably because she found it closed when she most certainly would prefer it to be open. So, bedtime was a hit-and-miss affair as she headed off in generally the right direction, but she inevitably took a right turn at Albuquerque and ended up back at the fridge.
Is Little JC lost? Follow that noise. It’s not a satanically possessed child or a hound of hell . . . that’s the littlest pug you’ve ever seen, being absolutely furious at the side of a refrigerator. June Carter was officially the most stubborn life form on the face of this planet. The most stubborn that has ever been; the most stubborn that shall ever be. If she was barking for attention, she would bark until she got attention. If she was barking for food, she would bark until she was fed. If you locked all four dogs into your office because the AC repair guy was trying to do his thing without interruption, then all four of your dogs would bark . . . but only one would keep barking until that door is opened, no matter how long that will be. And it would be June.
