{"id":2441967,"date":"2019-03-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=302244"},"modified":"2019-03-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T06:00:00","slug":"aspen-princess-when-going-to-the-dogs-is-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-princess-when-going-to-the-dogs-is-a-good-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen Princess: When going to the dogs is a good thing"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Big news: Today is Gertrude\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n

Yes, I\u2019m talking about our pug, and don\u2019t roll your eyes or act like you don\u2019t care. Whenever I bring her up to Aspen, I can\u2019t walk two feet without being accosted by a throng of people screaming and cooing and carrying on as if it were Beyonce, not a fat little dog who is as round as she is tall.<\/p>\n

In fact, if you must know, she is actually 20 inches around and only 12 inches long, and I know that because Ryan\u2019s cousin Dana wanted to make a jacket for her and asked me for her measurements. Her tongue doesn\u2019t quite fit into her mouth (on account of her flat face) and sticks out just a little bit \u2014 just enough that it\u2019s cute, not gross. I imagine that will come later, when she is old and gravity does its thing as her tongue starts to make its slow descent toward the ground, which is not so far away after all. But for now, we imagine that if she could talk, she would speak with a lisp. That makes pretending to know what she\u2019s thinking a lot of fun. At all timesth. Like, thisth isth ridculousususth.<\/p>\n

She snorts like a pig, especially after exerting herself. Like when she runs up the spiral staircase at night and jumps into bed with us via the leopard print staircase I purchased to make that easier for her because pugs can\u2019t jump. She likes to burrow under the covers, and smoosh her entire body against mine so I have to sleep with her in my arms all night. And to think I was so opposed to co-sleeping. One should never judge.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s probably also why Gertie\u2019s Instagram feed (@gertie\u200bgoogleeyes<\/a>) has exactly eight times the number of followers as my personal account (@aspenprincess)<\/a>, at around 2,500. I write it from her point of view and have a lot of fun with the whole lisp thing, as well as her cavalier attitude about life.<\/p>\n

I have wanted a pug for as long as I can remember, so I guess I sort of understand why people go bonkers over her, even if it is a little much. I imagine the type of people who visit Aspen probably have the resources to get a pug of their own. I always want to say, \u201cIt\u2019s a dog, not a giraffe. If you love it so much, you can get one, too.\u201d And just because I know what\u2019s coming, you should never, ever buy a dog but always rescue one so help you dog, amen.<\/p>\n

Ryan was dead set against the whole pug thing. Like many mountain dudes, he was a big dog guy. He associated dogs with outdoor adventures and maybe also wanted his dog to be a reflection of himself, an advertisement of his own (ahem) size and stature. That\u2019s why his previous dog was a 110-pound German shepherd named George who probably could have been an astrophysicist or a medical doctor, he was that smart. He also was as well-trained as an army cadet. He would walk with his nose practically pressed against your calf because he knew never to walk in front of you.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no way we are getting a pug,\u201d Ryan would say whenever the subject came up. He had at least 100 reasons for this. And yes, it is really, super important to adopt a dog from the shelter because everyone in Aspen knows it\u2019s selfish and wrong to get a purebred dog from an AKC-certified breeder when so many dogs need homes. I\u2019m pretty sure charity work doesn\u2019t involve judging others. Plus, you guys write me the same email every time and I write the same response, which goes something like this:<\/p>\n

The story of Gertrude Angel Margo isn\u2019t so much about the dog as it is about my life and the miscarriage I suffered after spending a lot of time and money trying to get pregnant six years ago. I know millions of women go through it and it\u2019s the body\u2019s natural defense mechanism against an embryo that is likely deformed. But trust me when I tell you it\u2019s up there with divorce, death and taxes. I felt my body had deceived me in the worst possible way and that I had somehow failed as a woman. Then come the hormones that evoke a slew of horrible feelings that can\u2019t be controlled, like when you hit a patch of solid ice coming around the curve at mile marker 3 on Frying Pan Road going a little too fast. It\u2019s a high-consequence thing.<\/p>\n

When I declared, \u201cI\u2019m getting a pug and I don\u2019t care what you say,\u201d Ryan didn\u2019t argue. He drove me to Cimarron, Kansas, which is nine hours away, through sheets of rain so heavy our tires barely touched the road. We got a hotel room in Garden City, where local meat packaging plants leave an aroma in the air so stringent it burned our nostrils and made our eyeballs ache.<\/p>\n

But when we met our baby girl, she was perfection. The trip home was easy, as if she had been waiting for us and not the other way around. She prepared me for the real baby that would eventually, finally come and taught me about pure, unconditional, heart-aching love.<\/p>\n

Six years later, she\u2019s the center of the universe, this tiny creature who somehow wields tremendous power even though she is, for all intents and purposes, utterly defenseless. I\u2019m pretty sure she\u2019s some kind of deity, or maybe even god herself as she seems to possess wisdom that is otherworldly (and I\u2019m not just saying that because she looks like the alien from the movie \u201cMen in Black\u201d that made pugs famous). She also happens to be my muse.<\/p>\n

Happy sixth birthday, Gertrude Angel Margo. Thanks for all the love and laughter.<\/p>\n

The Princess is happy to be wearing sneakers without socks today. Email your love to alisonmargo@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Big news: Today is Gertrude\u2019s birthday. Yes, I\u2019m talking about our pug, and don\u2019t roll your eyes or act like you don\u2019t care. Whenever I bring her up to Aspen, I can\u2019t walk two feet without being accosted by a throng of people screaming and cooing and carrying on as if it were Beyonce, not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2441967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 15:13:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2441967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2441967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2441967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2441967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2441967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}