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Good thing I can touch type because Sasquatch is sitting in front of my keyboard. Yes, he’s a pug and that makes him a toy breed, but pugs are the beefy end of the toy scale, so when he actually sits up he blocks part of my view of the keyboard. But, I was the one who taught him the joys of falling asleep in front of the keyboard as a puppy. My first pug Pugsley was the only dog I’ve had yet that would scoot me forward in the chair, so she could sleep in the back of it. But Sasquatch was so cute as a puppy that I let him sit in front of the keyboard, and now that he’s five, it’s still cute, but also a little irritating. More irritating is the fact that I taught Pip, our sixty pound boxer/pug/Brittany mix, the same thing. He was supposed to top out at thirty pounds, so much for the vet estimating size as a puppy. Pip, sadly, has had to give up the pleasure of sleeping in front of the computer, there are limits to even my ability to type with a dog across my arms. Frankly, he’s now too big to fall asleep in my lap without a great deal of effort on my part. I’d never have taught him to be such a lap dog if I’d known he was going to be so big. One of the joys of a mixed breed dog is that surprise package stuff. Pip has also made me hesitate about ever owning a hundred percent boxer. They are great dogs, but they are a lot of dog if you do it right, and if you’re not going to do it right, why do it at all? Our fifty percent boxer is plenty boxer for our household. The pugs still don’t know what to do with all that boxer jump and energy some days. But it’s the jump and energy that makes a boxer. How can you not love a breed that you need one command just to give the dog permission to jump up on hind legs and look you in the eyes? There’s a weight and demand to Pip’s expression sometimes. It’s the most Brittany of him, that soulful, utterly intent look. That and the few times he’s actually done a perfect point to show us where birds are. Seeing a boxer with a huge black donut tail do a perfect point was way cool. I’m hoping in the coming year to get him into more obedience, with an eye for either agility or scent trailing/tracking. That big brain and that Brittany instinct seems a terrible thing to waste. The pug part calms him down just enough to make him our Big Puppy.