Rare Celebrity Sighting in Vilas

Featured Pet

Puddin': Seen at Last

The neighborhood's most photographed dog opens up.

For our inaugural Featured Pet, meet Puddin', a neighborhood beauty with a complicated relationship with rules, squirrels and hamburger buns.

Puddin' takes her role in the family seriously. She considers following her human dad a full-time job and, remarkably, will not pass her four-year-old human sister on the stairs. Other household expectations are more negotiable. The no-dogs-on-the-guest-bed policy, for instance, is treated as a suggestion.

Her official makeup is 50% blue heeler, 25% golden retriever and 25% yellow lab, plus, somehow, 2% Dalmatian. Her family also suspects 2% raccoon. Testing remains inconclusive.

When she isn't following Dad, Puddin' hunts squirrels with a career success rate of zero, rests her head on inconveniently hard surfaces and keeps an eye out for unattended carbohydrates. Hamburger buns are a particular weakness.

Her lack of success with squirrels has not hurt her public profile. Strangers routinely tell Puddin' she's beautiful. Drivers have called out questions about her from their cars. One passenger even took her picture, most recently on Van Beuren in Vilas, proof that Puddin's fame, like this paper's coverage, does not stop at the Monroe Street border.

Puddin' remains available for squirrel patrol, bun inspection and compliments.