puppy." (from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen)
A subplot of Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park" featured the transition of animals from living outside to living indoors with people through the introduction of Lady Betram's pug, Pug. Pug was a vital tool for Austen in drawing comparisons between the different characters in "Mansfield Park." My design: Imagine that Pug's puppies broke into Lady Betram's armoire one day and got into her hats (which would probably have Lady Bertram rethinking the desirability of having dogs in the house.) My design features Pug’s puppies wearing ladies’ hats popular during Austen’s time: the morning cap also known as a mob cap and the turban. This is my original caricature 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 hardly squatty at all. Source: 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 Austen’s Mansfield Park’s Lady Bertram’s Pug. It can be found at http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol25no1/palmer.html and it is definitely worth reading. 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.