{"id":18906,"date":"2013-06-19T06:16:22","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T11:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=18906"},"modified":"2013-06-18T09:10:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-18T14:10:00","slug":"the-pugs-of-middle-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=18906","title":{"rendered":"The Pugs of Middle Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BoromirTwo things:<\/p>\n

1) Even though cats are great, this right here is why I will always prefer dogs.<\/p>\n

2) There is a fine line between “hobby” and “mental illness” and these people are dancing all over it.<\/p>\n

Phillip and Sue Lauer are a California couple* who own three pug dogs. And they’ve spent the last six years dressing them in elaborate costumes and taking pictures of them. As you do.<\/p>\n

They apparently started by making unique holiday cards and also competing in “local dog-dressing competitions” which…I did not know were a thing. (Why<\/em> are they a thing? And are there also, y’know, international<\/em> dog-dressing competitions? So many questions.) Eventually it grew into a full-time hobby. To the point where they had a custom photo studio built in their home so they could take really good<\/em> pictures of their dogs dressed in costumes.<\/p>\n

I…got nothing.<\/p>\n

But! As ridiculous as this whole thing sounds, the photos are hilariously awesome. There are pictures of preternaturally patient pugs dressed as characters from Lord of the Rings<\/i>, as rock stars, as bathing beauties, and many more. The Guardian<\/a> and The Daily Mail<\/a> have galleries for your delectation.<\/p>\n

Dogs are splendid.<\/p>\n

(via Geyser of Awesome<\/a>)<\/i>
\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n*Of course<\/em> they’re in California. Author Calvin Trillin once remarked after seeing a man blowing enormous bubbles on Venice Beach that people in California tend to become very, very good at completely pointless things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two things: 1) Even though cats are great, this right here is why I will always prefer dogs. 2) There is a fine line between “hobby” and “mental illness” and these people are dancing all over it. Phillip and Sue Lauer are a California couple* who own three pug dogs. And they’ve spent the last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-peculiar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18906"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18923,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18906\/revisions\/18923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}