Pug People, we have a most adorable duo of duos for you: Sunny and Honey the Pugs and their People, Brandye and Josh! They sing together, wear goofy costumes together, celebrate Sunny and Honey’s significant others’ birthdays, they are just an all-around pugtastic Pug Family. Enjoy getting to know them!
PP: Look at you four! What a cute family!
Josh: Well, the pugs make us look good.
PP: Give us your pug history. Have you always been Pug People?
Brandye: Yes. We’ve had pugs for about eighteen years, most of the time we’ve been together. We got Buddy about a year after we started dating, and that was it, breed loyalty from then on out.
PP: You know that’s what we like to hear.
Brandye: After Buddy we had Romper and Cricket for about twelve and a half years.
Brandye: After they both passed, Josh was like “Okay, we’ve had pugs for all these years and they’ve pretty much controlled how and when we’ve traveled, where we live, maybe let’s just take some time and be a couple of humans.” And that lasted… not quite two months.
PP: OMP! We thought you were going to say two years!
Brandye: Two months. We knew it was bad when there was a random house fly buzzing around our bedroom and we gave it a name. Fluffy.
PP: Ha!
Brandye: Yeah, so we started looking around for places to adopt or rescue, and then we thought maybe we would try a puppy since we’d had seniors for so long with all their ailments. We thought maybe our hearts and our pocketbooks needed a break from that. We got Sunny first, at eight weeks.
PP: Ohhh, there is nothing in the world cuter than a pug puppy. They’re like wind-up toys with those little tails.
Josh: When they’re that small, I feel like I’m living with a real-life cartoon. They just look like an animation.
PP: Did they get along when you first brought Honey home?
Brandye: They did—you know, all pug puppies are tiny, she was by far the tiniest we’d ever seen—
Josh: We were afraid we were going to break her—
Brandye: And Sunny was just the calmest, gentlest big brother. He’s always been an old soul, but the second we picked her up, he took it to the next level.
Josh: We monitored them, for sure.
Brandye: Yes, because he’s a pretty good-sized pug and we were afraid he might unintentionally hurt her. But the truth is, from the first moment, she ruled the roost.
Josh: She has her way with him, she chews on him, but he doesn’t seem to mind it. It’s like he’s made of ham.
PP: She still looks pretty small, is she?
Brandye: She’s only thirteen pounds.
PP: Thirteen?! Our pugs could never. They’re full-figured. Rubenesque, if you will.
Josh: We think she decided to stay little so she could hide from him while they’re playing.
PP: Guys, do you remember the moment you crossed over into legit Pug Personhood?
Brandye: When we went to our first “Pugs Take…” event in Philadelphia; we’re only an hour away in Dover, Delaware. We met so many awesome people and so many awesome pugs, and that’s when we fell in love with the whole pug community. We found our people.
PP: We just have to interrupt the beauty of this by saying you’re our first Delaware pugs!
Josh: We’re honored!
PP: Now back to the glories of Pug People: what do you like most about them?
Josh: Everybody’s got a good sense of humor. Quick to smile, quick to laugh. I’ve never met a cranky Pug Person.
PP: And here’s a big Pug Person question: do they sleep with you?
*Pause.
Josh and Brandye: …Yes.
PP: Okay, we felt the pause of “are we going to admit this?”, but we just want to reassure you, 95% of the Pug People we’ve interviewed say ‘yes’.
Josh: Oh, good to know!
Brandye: We’re in good company.
PP: How did you two meet, anyway?
Brandye: I was bartending and Josh was in a local band that would play our venue.
PP: Are you still in a band?
Josh: Brandye and I play together.
PP: Hold up! Seriously? That is so cool! Have you ever written a song about the pugs?
Brandye: Not a real one. But they’re in a lot of our recordings because we would record here and there was a lot of barking and toenail clicking sounds, and the occasional “Romper, no!”
Josh: We should write one for them, though. That would be fun. Like Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara in “Best in Show” for their terrier.
PP: Absolutely! Are you guys pug paraphernalia people? Actually, let’s be specific, do you have any weird pug paraphernalia?
Brandye: I have a pug nail polish dryer. It’s battery-operated and you push it and it shoots out air to dry your nails.
PP: We have not heard that one before. It’s amazing, you think you’ve heard them all, then somebody says they have a pug nail polish dryer. Do you have a favorite memory or story?
*Brandye and Josh confer. Murmurs of “so many stories” and “we could tell that one” and “no, the other one” drift over to us.
Josh: Okay, here’s a story. A coworker gave me a box turtle and we made a little habitat for it in the yard. And Romper was so interested in this turtle, so fascinated by it, but we realized that the turtle was trying to lay eggs, so we decided to take it back to the forest. And Romper went into a depression after the turtle was gone. So, we printed out a picture that looked like the turtle and put it on the refrigerator down by his face and it revived him! Until he realized it wasn’t real.
PP: Oh, no! Poor Romper and his fake turtle heartbreak.
Josh: We ended up going back into the forest to try to find the damn thing, but we couldn’t find it. Romper eventually got out of it, but we really think he was in love with that turtle.
Brandye: And we had a voice that we did for Romper, (launches into a Gilbert Gottfried-ish rasp) “Dat’s not a real turtle!”
PP: We love, of course, that you had a voice for Romper. We always ask Pug People if they do voices for their pugs.
Josh: Yeah, we don’t have one for Sunny, we can’t figure his out. But Honey has one. Like a trembly little Southern belle.
PP: Does she do the voice for her boyfriend? They both have significant others, don’t they?
Brandye: Yes, Sunny’s girlfriend is Pennie Pug and Honey’s is Milo Carl. ( @penniepug @milocarlthepug )
PP: When we have super fun people like you, it’s hard to ask what your True Pug Confession is, since that’s basically your entire life. But do you have one that pushes the envelope a bit?
Brandye: Well, any crazy Pug Person who dresses up their pug will understand this. We needed space for all their clothes, so we had to create a wardrobe. We had a clothesline in the laundry room and kept all of Honey’s dresses in a basket, but her tutus were getting so wrinkly—
PP: God forbid a wrinkly tutu!
Brandye: Yeah, so we went on Amazon and ordered those little toddler hangers, so all their clothes could be hung up, and all their bandannas and bowties, too.
PP: We love all of that, but the special order of toddler hangers really does it for us.
Brandye: And I went with black hangers, so all the clothes colors would really pop.
PP: Popping pug colors. Lord, yes, please.
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