Gabriel asked for a dog several times when he was a little boy. But we didn’t want to get a dog. “Too much trouble,” we said. “Who needs a dog? Neither of us had a dog when we were growing up and we turned out fine.” Gabriel had to be content with a stuffed animal, a red bulldog that he called Brutus, which he won at a fair in Michigan.

But after Gabriel tore his ACL at the age of eleven in a senseless accident and couldn’t play sports anymore, David and I decided we should get a dog.

Gabriel wanted a bulldog. But I had learned that pugs were very cute while visiting my friend Rosa in Los Angeles. Rosa had two pugs, an old pug and a young pug. I convinced Gabriel that pugs had the most adorable squished faces of any dog in the world. Read more