puppy.'†(from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen)
Sally B. Palmer, an associate professor of English at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (at least as of 2004) wrote a paper on Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park’s Lady Bertram’s Pug. It can be found at http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol25no1/palmer.html. It is worth a read. Her paper describes how pets were viewed in the early 19th century when most creatures of the four legged variety were used for food, transportation, or work and how Austen incorporated them into her novels. My design features the puppies of Lady Bertram's Pug wearing ladies’ hats popular during Austen’s time: the morning cap also known as a mob cap and the turban. This is my original interpretation of the comical looking pug of today. During Austen's time, though, pugs were not the pugs of our time. Through years and years and years of intentional breeding, we know our pugs today as squatty, funny, sweet dogs that can lean toward obesity. The pugs of Austen's time were longer of leg and were not squatty at all.