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Thinning seedlings: I think they scream as I tear them out…

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A row of baby little marvel shell peas. All unsuspecting.

I think the baby plants scream when I ruthlessly pluck them out of the ground. I know it has to be done. It is my job as a gardener to be a creative, even divine force. The choices I make about which of the little seedlings get to swell into tastiness, into full fruit and seed producing maturity, are irrevocable. My choices shape the future of plants in my garden through pollination and seed harvesting. The lucky ones spaced properly apart for effective growing survive. The particularly lovely, big, and cheery looking guys make it. A lot of not-yet, never-will-be plants will die though, and their unique random genetic mutations die with them. It pains me every time I tug on their little bodies and feel their tiny roots rending.

A pea sprout gets it.

I have already this spring killed baby radishes, peas, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, eggplants….and it isn’t just the vegetables who get it either. Zinnias, poppies, nasturtiums, wild bergamot, calendula: no one is safe. My seedling book says that I am doing no one any favors by letting them live too crowded. The book says unthinned seedlings will be stunted and weak. But thinning. It has such a Malthusian feeling.

The radishes. Screaming as they lay shriveling in the mulch.

Yesterday I thinned the peas. The tiny roots of the rejected seedlings clung desperately to the soil. I thinned the radishes. And I must admit that in an act of god-like absorption, I ate those tiny baby plants (and again, Malthusian!). I hovered over the beets, but they are too small for thinning. I can’t yet determine which are weak, which are unsightly, which are destined for the compost. The whole row of beet sprouts sighed and shivered in relief as I stood and walked away.

Hamish is concerned by all the screaming, and carefully monitors the garden as I work.

I told the spouse about my worries. That I think the little baby plants shriek and fight to live. The spouse patted the dog and looked at me over the garden fence. He reached over and snatched a tiny radish plant from its tidy row. His teeth crunched a little on the tender leaves. “They’re just plants,” he told me, and wandered off with the weed trimmer. I looked at the empty spot where that radish used to be and now was never going to be again. I really thought I heard it scream.

Debating Obedience and Disempowerment with Dogs

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Miss Tibbit explores the limits of her autonomy within the bounds of Authority.

“Miss Tibbit,” I addressed her hindquarters as she strained away from me with all the power in her small frame. “Miss Tibbit,” I repeated and shortened her leash during a brief lull in the pulling. Her head snapped when she hit the end of her lead sooner than expected. She gave me a dark look that clearly said, What do think you’re doing?

I reeled her in and asked her to sit by my foot. She refused. Flatly.

“Miss Tibbit, do you know what obedience means?” She glanced at me from the corner of her dark eye. No. She was not being truthful. She watched a squirrel in the tree above us. She heaved at the leash in dog rampant, front paws flailing toward a submissive Golden Retriever across the street. Over her shoulder between choking gasps and yips she said, But I do know what disempowerment means!

I gasped. The audacity. Disempowerment indeed!

A good, obedient boy trusts Authority to know best.

I asked Hamish to join us. He was illicitly rolling in a moldering worm and finished up before coming over. He, always a gentleman, sat by my foot and looked up at me smiling. What can I do for you?

“Hamish, do you know what obedience means?”

Sure. It happens when I comply with your rules and submit to your authority. He sniffed Miss Tibbit’s foot and walked on.

I thought to myself: EXACTLY. “Miss Tibbit,” I called forward to Miss Tibbit, who now had her snout shoved into a clump of dense spring grass, “Miss Tibbit, did you hear Hamish? This is how we live within a society. We all agree to obey higher levels of authority and to conform to our culturally derived rules for appropriate behavior.”

Miss Tibbit bravely delivers her anti-authoritarian oration while under the restraint of Authority.

Miss Tibbit looked up, plump shreds of grass dangling from her lower lip. What happens when Authority establishes rules prohibiting my ability to perform actions demanded by my cultural milieu and my own good conscience? What happens when an entire subset of citizens is uniformly stripped of autonomy by Authority and society at large? Is it not my right, even my burden to protest these removals of individual autonomy? Hamish’s ears perked forward and he watched Miss Tibbit with interest. I didn’t like him being exposed to her radical ideas. He has always been a good boy, no trouble at all. We walked on down the block while I thought about it.

Ah, I had it. We stopped for a moment under the bower of a large blooming cherry tree. “But Miss Tibbit, you are meant to trust me to know what is best. You don’t understand the dangers of the cars, toxic lawn treatments, other dogs. The world is too big and too complex for one small dog of limited experience to understand.” Hamish nodded at me, Yeah, he said in his small voice.

Obedience and civil disobedience.

Miss Tibbit snorted and shook her body, tail lashing a little longer than the rest of her. I didn’t choose you, your authority was granted by the system. And you don’t trust me. You don’t believe that I have the ability to know something you don’t, or that I might be not disobeying but instead attempting to negotiate a situation outside of your awareness or concern.

Hamish cocked his leg against a hosta. I think Miss Tibbit is advocating civil disobedience, he said. I didn’t see anything particularly civil about her heaving and straining against the leash, or yipping and barking at everything and nothing. It looked like plain old disobedience to me. But she and Hamish were making potentially valid points and I probably should consider their perspective. Perhaps later.

Authority rewards obedience.

“Who wants a cookie?” I asked. They bounded over and like good dogs sat on haunches in front of me. They deftly snapped their treats from the air. It was nice and quiet and calm while they chewed. No trouble at all.

You have all that gray hair, but your face looks so young.

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Elvis on the move, moments after he ditched a wad of gum or tobacco in the potted palms.

Once again I was minding my own business in a public place – brain elsewhere because I had just delivered a research paper while feeling ever-so-queasy from a little too much wine and a few too many Elvis sightings the evening before. I was in a city far from home – not Vegas but the other Elvis city. I am never completely aimless or preoccupied when I’m in a strange city, because that’s just not good business, but I was sort of slumping along in my smarty-pants suit heading back to the conference center after a respite from the noise and hot air of too many brains talking too much.

A youngish man, 31 years old as it turns out, swooped in beside me, his pencil behind his ear, notebook at his side. He matched his pace to mine and looked at me. Since I wanted to be able to describe him to the police after he ran off with my purse, I looked back at him. I’m a naturally friendly person, and maybe nefarious people are less inclined to rob nice folks. So I took a chance. I smiled at him, a little social smile. A smile that said I see you walking here next to me on this fine spring day, Stranger.

He blurted out his line: “You look young.”

Huh?

I didn’t falter, but I thought, Where can this backhanded comment possibly lead? Because friends, I am not particularly young and his statement about my youthful appearance sounded insultingly surprised. I was willing to play this through. I had the time, and people are so fascinating, aren’t they? I said, “Oh?”

This person hiked up his oversized jeans and looked awkward. I looked around to see if he had associates sneaking up on us for this riveting conversation. Nope. He said, “I mean, you have all that white hair in there,” and he gestured to the front of his hair – where mine has turned mostly white. I guess he figured I might not know what he meant. As though nearing middle age women don’t notice the constant encroachment of the white. He continued, “You have all that gray hair, but your face looks so young. It doesn’t match.”

I smiled pretty big at him because I was really, truly amused. I said, “That’s the joy of life keeping me looking young.” He seemed confused. He shook his head and looked at the ground. He attempted to clarify his point and said , “Well, I’m 31.” I thought, And so?

I realized that I had no idea what was going on, and I decided to end the social engagement. “Time does pass,” I told him. I accelerated my walk and he peeled off to the side, joining some friends at a trolley stop. He told me to have a nice day.

It is a week later, and I still can’t figure out what was going on. The street I was on is notorious for unsavory party-city activities. The goal in shops, restaurants, and from folks on the street is to separate tourists from their money and/or self respect. The person sure swooped in on me like he was going to lay down a sales pitch line about his “cause” which just needed some financial support. But instead of any of that sordid business, he and I talked about time passing, aging, and the joy of life. Does it even really matter what was going on?

Dental hygiene at what cost?

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The husband contributes a guest essay while the WideEyed…Wife travels for work.

I am the husband of the beautiful and talented author of the wideeyedfunk blog you are slowly falling in love with one week at a time.  I am your guest author this week as the wifey is off doing her big-brained, intellectual work in another one of the 50 States. When I am not absent mindedly looking for the ketchup or awesomely rewiring our light fixtures in a drunken stupor I am allowed to go outside and play with the public at large. You can see some stuff out there if you open your eyes and look around. Sometimes you see good things and sometimes you see things you wished you hadn’t, but there is always something.

Here’s an example of the latter:

This past weekend I was sitting in the car waiting for the spouse to come out of a store.  I was passing the time with my iPhone watching a movie on Netflix and marveling, as I often do, at the wonders of modern technology.  When I was young a telephone was heavy, it could be used to whack a burglar in a pinch.  It had a rotating dial that schoooooook—ch-ch-ch’d its way back and forth as you dialed each digit in the phone number in question. AND it had a cord that attached it to a jack on the wall. If you were out and about and needed to call someone then you needed a payphone and some pocket change.  Disgusting things those pay phones…did they ever get cleaned?  I don’t think so.  All that spittle, face oil, ear detritus, and other disgusting effluvia just piling up on the receiver year after year. Yuck. If you wanted to see a movie you went to the movie theater…another arguably disgusting public experience.  Now you can do both…on a phone that is the size of a wallet. Amazing.  It will never get old to me.

Anyway…I digress.  So there I was sitting in the in the car minding my own business watching my movie and marveling as indicated above.  In my peripheral vision I see a car pull into the space in front of me.  No biggie…still watching my movie.  Again, in the periphery, I see the driver door open.  Movie still has my attention.  A female head and attached shoulders lean out from the interior of the car.  Not a whole person, just the head and shoulders.   I am starting to think that maybe, just maybe this could be one of those “see something” moments.  My instincts were validated seconds later as a stream of spit jetted forth from her mouth on to the unsuspecting street below.  Spit? I guess that cheapens the moment somewhat and girls are made up of sugar and spice and everything nice so let’s try to pretty it up a bit…a cascading water fall of liquid erupted forth from her mouth and showered the ground below?  Either way…it happened.  I saw it. THEN…a hand shot out from the interior of the car and it was holding a toothbrush.  Oh…I see.  All the sudden it wasn’t a gross experience anymore…it was simply good dental hygiene.  Well ok, I can respect that.  Good dental hygiene is important at home or on the go.  Carry on my good woman! Spit out that toothpaste with pride! My respect for this person was renewed…for a moment.

My good feelings were soon shattered as the hand swung down and knocked the toothbrush against the bottom of the car. Umm. What?! What am I supposed to think now?  Gross right?  Will that toothbrush ever be used again?  I hope not. Certainly not…right?  I mean, she might as well have just knocked it against the street.  The filth of humanity is on the street and gets kicked up onto your car as you drive.  Your toothbrush and the bottom of your car should never have the pleasure of meeting. It’s not a written rule but I am sure Emily Post would have a word or two on the subject.

So as I sat there trying to gather my thoughts, the car slowly drove to the opposite side of the street and parked again. A man soon emerged from a nearby house, walked to the car, gave the woman a quick smooch and then climbed into the passenger side. Nice right?  Maybe it’s a date and she was stopping for a quick tooth brushing before picking up the man.  I can appreciate that…very considerate. But I couldn’t stop wondering if that toothbrush had been through this routine on previous occasions.  How would that guy feel if he had just seen what I saw?  Would that quick smooch have happened?  Maybe the date would not have happened. But, at that moment, my wonderful wife climbed into the car and suddenly all was right with my world again. I drove off and left the two strangers to enjoy their…let’s go with date.

Don’t forget to brush!

Dear Other Drivers, You Don’t Own the Road. Sincerely, Me.

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You don’t own the road.  I know it is so hard to believe and so profoundly, deeply unfair, but you don’t own the length of road between where you are now and where you want to be. I don’t mean where you want to be in 1.2 seconds because, ok, you might arguably have rights to that space. I am saying you don’t own the whole path from A to B. You also don’t own all of the lanes when you are going around a curve that actually requires you to steer. You don’t own the entire street, even for the few moments you are stopped in the middle of it to send off a quick text. Therefore, you don’t need to have fits when someone else, namely Me, goes around you, merges into a lane you have claimed, makes a turn several hundred feet in front of you, takes an exit you were thinking of using, or stops for a red light that you intended to run.

Because you don’t own the road, it is equally unnecessary to punish me for my use of it. I do enjoy your aggravated gesticulations, including the head shake, fist shake, wide open palm wave that indicates your shock at my actions, and the very classy, very classic middle finger. I particularly like the performances where you mime punching me, shooting me, or shaking me by the neck. I admit that I find more disturbing your swerving toward me, tailgating me, and the ever effective pulling in front of me and slamming on your brakes. But you know, I have ten airbags. I’ll probably survive the wreck. Will you?

I find it curious that none of you, upon our mutual arrival at the natural foods co op, are sufficiently committed to your defense of road territory to actually speak to me outside the confines of your auto armor. If you feel strongly enough about my trespass that you are willing to teach your toddler passengers new words and gestures, perhaps you might consider real communication with me.

We aren’t having a race. I mean it. I am not racing you. If I happen to pass you, it is because you are going slower than me. Most likely you are going slower because you are on the phone or texting. When I do pass you, I am not emasculating you. Or stealing your feminine power. I am not trying to beat you home – I don’t know or care where you live or when you get there. I am not trying to get to the co op before you do, because I am pretty sure they have enough organic French lentils for all of us.

Because it isn’t a race, if I attempt to merge onto the highway, I am certainly not challenging your position in the flow of traffic. I know, I know, it feels like I am pushing you back, diminishing you, making you a loser when I merge. But I promise, I won’t contest it if you must accelerate wildly to pass me after I squeeze into your lane two seconds before you run me off the road.

Even if you did own the road, I’d still use your space, and if we were racing I would win. You see yourself as the Road Warrior, you are the BMW or the Peugeot in the Ronin chase, you are playing Grand Theft Auto in real time, you are the master of all of you survey in your powerful machine thrumming with the might of 90 or maybe even 400 horses. But make no mistake, you aren’t the master. My car is faster, nimbler, and probably smaller than yours – it has the trifecta of urban maneuverability. I could take you if I wanted. Easily. But I am polite so I don’t. Most of the time.

You say that like beer would somehow impair my ability to be awesome.

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Actually, I didn’t say it like that at all. It was a simple query about the wisdom of the action being taken.

Probably it's completely safe.

We were having a rainy and cold Saturday evening. The husband was fussing with the 1920s ceiling light we found at Buffalo Reuse last weekend. It was tucked up in a back room of that cavernous, dark, and very, very grungy retail outlet for parts yanked out of “green” demolition projects. Stacks of tiles torn from bathroom walls (the husband is still fighting an infected cut from one of those), old toilets (I mean used toilets, really really used toilets), doors, windows, tin ceiling chunks, and other house bits are piled next to only slightly worn tanks of corrosive fluid.

Anyway, the husband had just discovered that with careful use of Bon Ami he could remove the filth crust of nearly 100 years to make the molded milky glass of the light gleam like new. All that remained was to replace the dangerously inept 1970s era rewiring with new, legal, and safe wiring and we (meaning “he”) could hang it in the upstairs foyer. The wiring he took out of that poor light fixture was thick and patinated, melted copper wire forcibly shoved through the historic porcelain sockets. I can’t believe the whole thing hadn’t caught the house it lived in on fire – although maybe it had. It was at Buffalo Reuse because its old house had been torn down as too useless for even the crack and meth demons.

So on this cold Saturday evening the husband wandered from the dining room, where the lamp was laid out in bits, into the kitchen, where the beer is kept. I heard the fridge door open and shut. A few steps and the bottle opener drawer squealed open. Fzzt. The bottle cap clanked onto the counter. He wandered back into the dining room and drank some beer while looking down at the lamp bits. Deciding something, he plonked his beer down in the mess of lamp parts. He picked up one of the bulb sockets and inspected it. With his other hand he gave himself some beer. Plonked the bottle back down. This went on for a little while. I wasn’t exactly watching events, but it wasn’t a real exciting night around the homestead so I was, well let’s say I was aware. There may have been more than the one beer. It is at least possible that there were a few beers. That can happen on a Saturday.

1920s ceiling light, during beery rewiring.

The husband settled himself at the table and picked up the coil of new wiring. He sort of held it up to one of the sockets. Measuring like. I thought about that for a moment. I flashed it through in my head, seeing him wiring the lamp, putting it back together, hanging it upstairs, admiring it, and then I imagined the cascade of sparks showering from it because maybe, just perhaps, something went a little wrong, a little beery in the rewiring. The husband is sort of like a savant with this kind of stuff, but I kept thinking about the beer.

 I couldn’t help myself. I asked, “Do you think it’s smart to do that when you’re drinking beer?”

 You know what he said.

 And now you can wonder about that lamp, the house, his ability to be awesome. And you might be examining the image for the kind of beer. Because obviously, some beers lend themselves to rewiring antique ceiling fixtures and awesomeness better than others.

Chips Weren’t Meant to Be Baked

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Offending baked chips. Note the clear "Baked" marking. They don't want us to be surprised. They know there are disappointments inside.

I just ate a thin piece of ranch flavored cardboard. Oh. Wait. I’m looking at the bag I pulled it from and I see the problem. It’s a bag of BAKED potato chips. BAKED.

Friends, let me say to you: chips were not meant to be baked.

 I know. We eat too much fat. We eat too much salt. We eat too many chips. And by “we”, I mean “I”, but I am not alone because some food scientist/dietician fool decided to bake chips. And some management fool decided that this was marketable. And what is truly remarkable is that taste testing fools told them this resulted in edible, even maybe good snacking. They lied.

I am at the least a third generation chip snacker. I know chips.

The Snack Man at the chips.

Grandpa always had a bag of chips at his house. Those chips were always open, the top of the bag carefully rolled and clothes-pinned. They were always tucked up high – on the top shelf above the cereal, the crackers, the unused old dried soup packets. We kids needed to climb onto the chair, to get up on the stool, to stand on the counter, to reach the chips. Friends, those chips weren’t baked.

 My dad was known as the “Snack Man” for years, after one of my brother’s girlfriends noted that he spent a certain amount of time munching from bags of chips at the pantry door. I used to lie around in bed reading a lot when I was a kid, but the sound of a foil bag rustling in an entirely different wing of the house sent me running. If the Snack Man was at the chips, an empty bag was sure to follow.

 I am broadly experienced in chips. I’ve eaten chips on three continents. I’ve had chips deep fried in lard, peanut oil, various vegetable oils, and once in the Russian Far East, chips that perhaps had been cooked in industrial waste oil.

Deep fried chip goodness.

I love chips. But again, friends, not baked chips. A baked chip is just a chunk of potato. It tastes…like a potato. Or, if it has flavor chemicals all over it, it takes like a piece of cardboard with flavor on it. Baked chips are no kind of chip at all.

 After the apocalypse, zombie, nuclear winter, whatever, who cares, I’m heading out with my shotgun to find a chip delivery truck. I’m going to pry open the cargo doors, make myself a chip bag chair, and snack. I’ll eat chips until I run out of shells for the ghouls or chips for the belly. Because, of course, no one is going to have time to make chips in the aftermath. Like prescription antibiotics and gasoline, chips will be a finite resource.

If you are reading this and you work for a chip company, I beseech you, tell your people to stop baking chips. Spend your time making more deep fried chip goodness. If you are reading this while eating chips, I can only applaud your good taste. If your chips are extra dark, small-batch, kettle-cooked, I bow to your greatness.

Why Muscle Cars Will Never Die

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Last Monday I was stepping smart through the Deep with my new long-handled shovel gripped in my left hand. The tempered steel blade shaft was clanking, not incidentally, against my wedding ring. I was fretting about the strength of the theoretical argument I just finished writing and my feet may have been moving but my mind wasn’t there. A cap wearing, middle aged, rangy man with about three days of whiskers caught my eye. He gave my shovel a significant look and said “Hey now, as soon as you’re done burying your old man, you give me a call.” He used all of his teeth in a smile.

I stumbled, yanked out of my thoughts. What? Heh? I replayed the last minute in my head. My eyes got wide as I figured it out and I started hooting and laughing, because I am that cool.

“Oh, you know I will,” I told him. It was an easy promise as I hadn’t really ever planned to dig my husband’s grave.

I paid for the shovel and headed out to the car. A pale blue Roush Mustang was parked out front – illegally – and I paused to snap a shot of it, because really, who doesn’t love a great muscle car?

The Mustang’s engine revved and it rumbled toward me as I took the picture. It turned the corner and the passenger window whirred down. “Remember, you get that burying done, you call me!” The engine roared and the car disappeared in a cloud of late season pulverized rock salt.

 I thought about it as I tossed the shovel into the back of the MCS. I eyed the sharp gleaming metal blade. I considered that pretty blue muscle car. Well, maybe…

6 Days in the Bathroom with Dental Probes and a Razor Blade

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I promise you, it is safe to read on. This isn’t about mental health. It isn’t about a hostage situation. It has nothing, whatsoever, to do with home veterinary surgery. It is about antique tiles and latex paint, achieving their disunion, and bothering with old things.

Once upon a time, Buffalo was the center of the universe and Olmsted’s parks were filled with flowering vines, nannies and prams, horses and bicycles. In this 1912 world of hope and money, Mr. and Mrs. Butler built my house. Its rooms were airy, the windows numerous. The bathroom gleamed with state of the art, antiseptic white subway tiles and tiny hexagonal floor tiles. Let’s imagine it was a joy to clean – for the woman who lived in the attic room, whose own toilet was in the basement.

Mr. Butler died fairly young in 1920. He spent only 10 years shaving in front of the shiny, new bathroom mirror. Catherine, his widow, sold the house within two years. As I picked latex paint from grout lines among the tiles next to the toilet with my sickle dental probe, I thought about her getting up the morning after her husband’s death, and facing the future in that same mirror. The Kaeselaus bought the house and stayed, one generation after another, for 40 years.

I imagined Mr. Kaesalau rinsing the cold sweat of disaster from his face on October 24, 1929 as I razored the paint from tiles near where the old sink was. As I stretched behind the radiator I wondered if Mrs. Kaesalau and her daughter dried their flimsy World War II stockings on it – Mr. Kaeselau was gone by then, and their sons may have been at war. What happened that Gladys, the daughter, inherited the house in 1955 instead of one of the sons? Why did she sell it to Mrs. Moni in 1962?

I do know that Mrs. Moni redecorated the house during her 30 years, using wood and melamine paneling. But she left the bathroom tiles alone – although maybe she is the origin of the vibrant turquoise paint I picked and scraped from the top rail tile…maybe she is responsible for the deep smoke patina in the tiles and on the house’s woodwork. I squeezed under the clawfoot tub to get to the paint back there, and envisioned a 1970s, fading glory, over middle aged woman lounging in a pink bubble bath. Chain smoking. With a martini. Didn’t everyone smoke and drink martinis in the 70s?

Mrs. Moni died, although hopefully not in the tub, and a series of folks moved in and out. Someone fixed the kitchen. Someone took out the paneling. Some couples divorced, others lost the house in foreclosure. I figure a lot this drama was acted out in the bathroom. The tiles I freed from their latex coat along the side wall probably saw their share of weeping and wailing, screaming and hairbrush throwing. But they survived it.

 Approximately 98 years into their life on the wall, the tiles were covered with a slick coat of white latex paint. Age marks, patina, old holes from old toothbrush holders, missing grout gaps, mysterious stains – all were covered in a clean wash of white. It’s awful. It’s sad. And after several days of quiet picking and scraping, the old tiles are again witness to life and history.

Are they unlovely? Sure, in some places. Do they look old? You bet. Would a sledge hammer have been quicker? Absolutely. Would I do it all over again – spend days picking and razoring paint? Yeah, I would. In fact, removing the glue and goo of new tiles from the hexagons on the floor is next.

I’ve seen bathroom tiles that are 2000 years old. Ok, maybe the bathroom around them is gone, but they are still there. I’ve used the bathroom next to tiles that are 200 years old. Yes, they were a little sketchy. No, I didn’t mind. Old isn’t bad. Old lets us think about the passage of time. 100 year old bathroom tiles? Entirely worth six days with some probes and razor blades.

The Pugrador Retreagle: A New Boutique Breed

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Pugrador Retreagle at 10 months.

Miss Tibbit came from the Buffalo Animal Shelter last summer, joining a Pembroke Welsh Corgi and a surly cat in her new home.

Miss Tibbit is a Pugrador Retreagle of the Toy Sporting Hound group. If you’ve not heard of this new boutique breed (mutt), these dogs result from a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Pug crossed with a Beagle (the Puggle). Let me take you through some of the interesting show-dog career ending traits Miss Tibbit exhibits. She will assume the role of the breed standard.

The Pugrador Retreagle is a toothy, ungainly, opinionated dog of uncommonly sweet nature. The breed is stoutly, solidly built in the torso with a deep chest balanced forward on outward angled spindly front legs. The hindquarters are narrow with lean haunches and skinny rear limbs. The tailed is thick, arched, and prehensile with a bendy joint halfway along and white tufts on the feathering. The Pugrador Retreagle’s gait alternates between a sidewinding, crabwalking trot and toe prancing. 

3 mos.

The coat is short, dense, and soft, with a tendency to stink and shed dandruff during periods of anxiety. It is black along the back, grading into deep bronze at the legs on the head, with white tufts on the belly.  The head is well shaped with a balanced snout and velvety ears that flop to the jawline. The mouth is toothy, with possibly too many bright, white teeth and an overly large tongue that is accidently bitten during frequent baying-barking fits. Deep brown eyes clearly reflect the mood: calm and loving, trouble seeking, or interested but not yet committed to action.

The Pugrador Retreagle is highly energetic, requiring a minimum of two walks and four yard romps per day, in addition to near-constant play sessions with other household animals and toys or household goods. The Pugrador Retreagle is however a fine napping companion when the energies finally fade. At 45 pounds and 20 inches at the shoulder, the Pugrador Retreagle is small enough to fit comfortably on the sofa, and to be picked up when its opinions are in opposition to human commands.

3 mos., romping

Pugrador Retreagles retrieve sticks compulsively, carrying them through the neighborhood until interesting aromas attract the sensitive nose, at which point the dog begins to aggressively track. They are smart and trainable if the tasks are interesting or the rewards sufficiently high. They cuddle close, and like contact with humans if nothing more exciting is happening. In all, Pugrador Retreagles exhibit few of the show qualities of the parent breeds, and many of the sweet, loyal aspects of the Pugs, Labradors, and Beagles. They are highly recommended as family pets for their sweetness of nature, and inexpensive, rescue-dog cost.