Sunday morning at 5 a.m. I had a visitor at my bedside. It wasn’t my 3-year-old with another nightmare about spiders or my older children needing a drink. It was my first born. My furry baby. My pug, Aggie. She had a tummy ache and wanted some comfort. I was exhausted from a long Saturday and didn’t get to bed until almost midnight. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled about my visitor and my husband was even less thrilled.

The pains of guilt I felt for inducing her stomach ache prompted me to hop out of bed and attend to her needs. We’d been gone for more hours than we’d planned on Saturday and when she gets lonely she refuses to eat. (Normally when we’re gone for long periods we send her to her “Auntie’s” house so she doesn’t have to be home alone.) But we were delayed on Saturday and got home later than expected and Aggie had given herself what I’ve diagnosed as a pug ulcer caused by Post-Dramatic Pug Disorder.

Aggie is not a normal dog. Anyone who has spent any amount of time with her knows this. Pugs in general are more human than canine, but Aggie got an extra dose of human. She’s a diva. She’s a drama queen. She’s needy. But I created the monster that she is so I have to deal with the consequences. Sunday at 5 a.m. the consequence was my own lack of sleep. Eventually I enticed her to eat and she was fine, but we were both exhausted.

Several weeks ago we heard noise coming from the girls’ bedroom long after we’d put them to bed. We opened the door a crack and to our surprise saw Aggie pouncing on the kids stuffed animals. The girls had lined up their animals on the floor in a careful row. Aggie, who had also been put to bed hours earlier, was wrapping her teeth around the jugular of her plush victims. Next she’d thrash it around before spitting it out and moving on downt the line. I don’t know what was more shocking – the fact that it was 11 p.m. and she was awake and playing in the dark of the night or that she’s 10 years old and was acting like a puppy. After several weeks of catching her in the act we actually had to put her in the toy-less room at night so she’d go to sleep.

Question: What stunts is your pet up to?

Check out Aggie on the inside pages of Puppies USA magazine in an article that Ann wrote for the 2009 Issue.