Pug pic of the day

Okay, so a billion of you pre-ordered my book from amazon. Y’all ROCK! As promised, here’s a cute pug photo. This is my fawn pug, Iorek. Yes, he was named after the polar bear in Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. It’s a Scandinavian name, and almost everybody pronounces it wrong. Technically, I guess it’s ee-OR-eck. But we slur it into YOR-eck. A lot of folks try to stick an “L” on the front and call him Lorek. My dad calls him Oreck, like the vacuum cleaners.

Iorek is a high-energy barker. That’s a nice way of saying that he’s a pain in the ass. He’s very, very protective of us, and considers almost everyone a threat—except for my mother-in-law, whom he loves. Most people don’t get to see him when he’s like this.