Greetings From Ethel

Hello. I am Amy, an apprentice author. I would like to share with all of you my draft chapter one of my unpublished book Ethel - A Pug's Life - (I know it is rather short).


1 What Can This Life Hold For Me?


I am Ethel. I guess I should start with the beginning. I was a puppy. My owners called me “Pudge.” My owners were a woman and man. It all started like that. I was born as one of a litter of six. But, one day, a woman came and took me away. She started calling me Ethel. We listened to a strange human woman sing on the radio. I did not like her music. It sounded like a goat. The woman took me inside a house in a quiet little town. Once I got inside a man ran up to me. “Aren’t you a cutie?” he said. I am not a cutie! I am a lady! I thought. I demand to be treated like such!


Another pug, exactly the same size as me, and a cat, which probably weighed as much as that other pug and me combined, ran up, too. “Hi! Hello! Salut! Bonjour! Konnitchi wa! Guten tag!” the pug said, excitedly. “Great. Another one a’ them! Now, I have t’ put up with TWO!” the cat moaned. “Hello. All you need to know is that I’m the top dog.” I told them, quickly. “Right.” the cat said, sarcastically. “Sorry, new pug! But, Snap’s the head! The top cat! The king a’ the roost! King! The boss! The-“ the pug said. “Yeah, yeah. She gets the picture, Bud.” the cat told the pug. “Ethel, this is Snap-“ the human told me, pointing at the cat and then the pug. “and Buddy!” I looked at both of them more thoroughly.



The pug, Buddy, is a fawn colored pug with fawn colored ears and a black tail, unlike me, I’m a black colored pug. The cat, Snap, was white with black spots, or is it the other way around? Anyway, I got settled in very soon and I learned that Snap is the king, they were going to name him Ginger Snap but he isn’t ginger colored so they just decided on Snap and he’s very sensitive about that, Buddy is my playmate and I should annoy Snap thrice a day or else, I have no idea what “Or else” means but Buddy said it’s pretty bad, my owner, Jenna, takes me on walks every morning and my other owner, Steve, takes me on walks at night. The sleeping situation is my preferred sleeping arrangement. I made it clear on the very first day I was there, that I would NOT sleep in a degrading dog bed! So, I sleep with Jenna and Buddy in one bed and Steve and Snap sleep in another bed. My food situation is also very pleasing. At breakfast I sit in a high chair at the table with Buddy in another high chair right next to me. Snap sits in a normal chair and just doesn’t climb onto the table and eat everyone else’s food. Snap eats sardines, Steve and Jenna usually have eggs for breakfast and lunch and fish-sticks for dinner, which I do not understand in the LEAST, they look nothing like fish, and Buddy and I have grounded up chicken with noodles. I enjoy my homemade chicken and noodles. I enjoy it a lot. And so does Buddy.