Alicia Cermak

My first dog, Mr. Wrinkles the pug, died in August, and my mum always said she’d never get another dog. However, unbeknown to her, my dad had been monitoring the Star Tribune classfied ads for pug puppies, and last week, he showed her the ad for an adorable litter of pugs, born on a farm in Clarissa, MN. My family looked at the ad for a few days, and on Tuesday night, after hours of family discussion, we finally decided to take the plunge. I was elected the family spokesperson, so I was the one to call the breeder and make arrangements. By the time we spoke, the breeder only had one left - a spunky little female who was the runt of the litter, but she was already spoken for. Heartbroken, I told my family she wasn’t available, and we agreed that maybe it wasn’t the right time yet.

Fast forward to Thursday morning, I’m sitting in the data center nursing a degraded RAID array, and I get a call from a number that I don’t recognize - it’s the breeder, and the woman was going to pick up the pug flaked! I made a call to her veterinarian, who said the pup was in good health, and after consulting Matt over IM and a quick talk with my dad, I called the breeder back to make arrangements. We agreed to meet around 3:30pm at the Holiday station in Sauk Centre, MN, which is about 30 minutes south of their farm in Clarissa, and about 1.5 hours from my home.

Matt and I drove out to Sauk Centre to pick her up this afternoon, and she greeted me by peeing on me. The drive home was pretty uneventful, and she basically just sat on Matt’s lap the entire time. We spent the entire evening playing with her - she’s a hoot.