Mogwai, the amazing albino (leucistic) Pekingese!

Happy #NationalDogDay! Oh, what joy these canine friends bring to our lives. I figured today was as good a time as ever to write a #dogblog!

Have you met Mogwai, my awesome/amazing/albino (well, technically leucistic) Pekingese? You can even follow him on his Facebook fan page. My dog had a fan page before I ever had one, and a talent agent (I never had an agent). Nathan nicknamed him "Mugsy Bogues" after the shortest-ever NBA basketball player.

When my friend Michelle stopped by from Jacksonville a couple of weeks ago, she met Mogwai. She said, "If I could have created a dog just to suit you, this is exactly the dog I would have picked." Sums it up nicely, IMHO. :)

The story of how I came to have him starts with a #throwback... way back to when I was a little girl, and we dog-sat a white Pekingese belonging to our Filipino friends, the Enriquez family. Cindy the Peke was sweet and cuddly. Nobody ever knew this before... #ConfessionTime... but once she got out of the backyard and ran down the street. I came out and called her, and she ran back to me! That stuck with me. Some cray-cray dogs would have just run away, never to be seen again... but sweet Cindy was domesticated.

So fast-forward to 2010, when I was co-anchoring with the lovely meteorologist Natalie Walters (who, incidentally, is a wonderful doggie-mama to Eevee). I adored Natalie's mom's white Pekingese, Mouse, so Natalie was aware of how much I loved Pekes. On May 22, 2010, she texted me this photo of herself holding a puppy for sale on the side of the road:

I wanted the dog, although I always preach "Adopt, don't shop." But LOOK AT THAT FACE!!! Nathan said no, because we were not married yet, we were only engaged. So time passed, and we still didn't have a dog.

We got married in October 2010, and I managed to convince Nathan that we should get a dog for Christmas. We moved from Monroe, LA to Shreveport. I got a phone call one random night in November from my friend Julie, who told me that her friend was moving and wanted to find a good home for her white Pekingese. Julie texted me a photo of the dog, and I definitely wanted him, but Nathan was like, "He looks sad!" (Note: Sometimes Mogwai does look sad, that's just his normal face if he's not smiling-- it doesn't mean he's a sad dog)

Despite Nathan's initial "the-dog-looks-sad" assessment, I convinced him that it was a Thanksgiving present to ourselves instead of a Christmas present, since we were planning to adopt a dog for the holidays anyway. I went to Monroe, picked up Mogwai, and absolutely fell in love. He's the sweetest little dog for us!

I eventually made contact with Mogwai's original mom, Crystal, and it turns out that she bought him on the side of the road that day that Natalie saw him! So the dog in the picture was Mogwai!!! IT WAS MEANT TO BE!!

Now, he's definitely a light in our lives. :) He knows lots of tricks: Sit, Stay, Up, Down, Spin, Bark, Shake. I try to teach him Roll Over but he freaks out, so that's probably not happening. He's not perfect, because he gets jealous if we dog-sit another dog and we pet that other dog. He'll be all pushy, like, "Get out of the way, these humans need to be petting ME." Totally rude, but hey, no dog is perfect!

I was throwing back my memory to all the times he's been on TV and even in the newspaper. Here's what I came up with, so click on the links to watch the videos:

KTBS 3 News -- Mogwai barks for the LSU Tigers

KTAL -- featured him in video for the Krewe of Barkus & Meoux pet parade

WPTV -- featured him dressed like the Easter Bunny in 2013

KTBS 3 News -- Mogwai dressed for Halloween in his Mugsy Bogues basketball costume

KTBS 3 News -- Hairy Potter" costume debut (I wish I had the video of morning anchor Ed Walsh's reaction when first seeing it-- I laughed at how he was blown away)

The Shreveport Times featured Mogwai's profile when he was on a float during the Krewe of Barkus & Meoux Mardi Gras pet parade...

I totally talked about this newspaper photo debut when I was anchoring KTBS 3 First News... and I admit that I insisted the camera get a tight shot on his picture. :)

The List TV Show national story with Ashley Porter covering how pet costumes fetch big business -- and Mogwai loves his doggie costumes!

The List TV Show South Florida talking about how the Easter bunny everywhere, and Mogwai just happened to be the Easter bunny. 

The List TV Show South Florida features a sneak peek to the Universal Studios' Wizarding World of Harry Potter's Diagon Alley, and Mogwai is the biggest "Hairy" Potter fan.

Before anyone cries "puppy abuse," let it be known that Mogwai actually is a rare dog (he's after all a Pekingese, and anyone who has one knows they love things other dogs don't like)... he gets excited when I pull out a purse, a costume, a shirt, etc. He WANTS to be in these things! Plus I give him lots of positive reinforcement, and of course I don't have him wear these things for more than a couple of minutes at a time. 

I hope you love this little dog like I do-- he's such a wonderful part of our family! #DogLove

Watch Nathan's tribute to Mogwai on this #NationalDogDay!