I’m not even going to try to catch you up on the happenings of the last, oh however many months it has been. My brain would melt. Instead, I’m going to share Petunia’s story, because I need to.
When Petunia came here, it had only been about a week since we had lost darling Hazel, who I was so in love with. Tiny, cute, and spunky, she was my idea of a perfect old lady pug. Suzi calls me, says, “Hey, I have another old lady for you, can you take her?” Well, sure, I guess, why not. My last “long term foster” lasted a little over a week, we’ll just see what we have now. And so, they arranged to bring me Petunia Pie, a female of unknown age, maybe some health issues, that had been picked up as a stray in LA. The people who transport sent me some pictures. I was not impressed. She looked fat, and, er, well, not so cute. Whatever. She needs help, right?
When Petunia got out of the car, I about fell over. Fat, wheezing, coughing, looking pretty weak in the rear, and with tufts of fur sticking out everywhere because it had been so long since anyone had brushed her, she was definitely not a prime example of Pug adorableness. I figured she had a couple weeks, tops. She had a huge tumor on her mouth, probably cancer I thought, was coughing up a storm, I was sure she had a heart condition, she kept falling down, and she just did not look well. By anyone’s standards this dog was not a picture of health. I called Suzi, “Are you kidding me? Really? This dog is going to die like, tomorrow.”
The first thing I did was give her a bath. Sick or not, I’m not having a dirty, smelly dog in the house. Ick. I scrubbed tons of hair off that dog, and she just stood patiently through all of it. The next day I took her to the vet. Oh, hey, she’s got kennel cough! Oh, no, her heart sounds great! No problems there! The falling? Not bad hips like I had thought, but a neurological problem with her spine. She drags her back feet and can’t really wag her tail, but it doesn’t cause her pain and she gets around ok. Once she was done with her meds for kennel cough, and didn’t quite sound like she was dying every five seconds, they scheduled her to get her teeth cleaned and have that mass removed from her mouth. They cleaned her teeth, pulled nine rotten ones which did wonders for her breath, removed the mass, and repaired her palate, which was causing quite a bit of her breathing difficulty.
I was fostering another younger dog, Pebbles, when I first got Petunia, so I kind of let them hang out together in the backyard. They were pretty good pals, and I didn’t want to get too attached to anyone since they were both leaving soon. Which Pebbles did, found a lovely home by the beach, lucky girl. Petunia? Well, Petunia is still here, months later.
After Pebbles got adopted, I kind of felt bad putting Petunia out by herself, so I decided to try to work her into “general population” with my dogs. She gets along, and really, I don’t think she cares a bit about any of them. Seems like she was going to be here for the long haul, since folks weren’t lining up to adopt her, so might as well make the best of it, hey?
Here’s the thing about Petunia. She’s not a pretty dog. Wall eyed and with crooked ears, oh dear, no one was ever going to call her cute, and even attractive is a stretch. She makes a LOT of hideous gaspy, gaggy, gross noises. She farts whenever I pick her up. She falls down a lot. She follows me around and I’ve nearly killed myself more than once trying to fancy dance and not step on her. She can’t hear much, and she spends a lot of time just staring into space. She stops breathing on a regular basis. I’m talking like half a dozen times in an evening. She’ll be laying on a dog bed, go silent, we look over and she’ll throw her head back and gasp, and start up again. Someday, she’s going to forget to breathe. Literally. We are kind of used to it, and I don’t think there is anything that can be done about it. But I give her pillows to prop her head on so her trachea can stay open. I do not spoil her one bit. I am so in love with this dog it is ridiculous. She is about as useful as a box of rocks and I adore her.
Petunia has been here since the 6th of August. She has slowly worked her way into the fabric of the family. We go to the Pug Rescue events and Josh pushes Quinn in her stroller and I push Petunia in her fancy pink stroller. Everyone always fawns over Petunia and barely looks at my child. It is a dog event after all. Petunia climbs onto the dog beds with Jester and snuggles up next to him. If you know Jester you’ll know he is disgusted by other dogs, and cuddling, but he grudgingly puts up with Petunia. Petunia lives in a oblivious world sometimes, it’s kind of funny. Quinn LOVES Petunia, and hugs her and pats her and pulls her around. Petunia just looks rather pained and puts up with it.
I think I fell in love with Petunia when I was out back in that yard with Quinn in her swimming pool, and I was sitting next to it on the ground. Petunia came up and sat down as close to me as she could get, and leaned on me and rubbed her face on my arm. Oh, well, then. This dog is not so bad I guess. Ever so slowly, Petunia started getting the same freedoms and house privileges as my dogs. Going everywhere in the car, hanging out in the living room at night, following me into the bathroom while I shower. Petunia loves to sit next to me while I dry my hair. She is not afraid, maybe can barely hear the blow dryer. She follows me around, shuffling her little feet and slipping and sliding on the floors. We tried putting her on the bed to see if she’d lay down with the other dogs while I vacuumed. Er, let’s just say Petunia flies rather well and luckily landed on a soft dog bed. We don’t put her on the bed anymore.
At the Pug Rescue holiday party, someone came up and had come specifically to meet Petunia and was interested in adopting her. After I went to Suzi and bawled for a minute, I got over myself and reminded myself she is a foster dog after all. And, lovely family, they would have been perfect, and I realized I would have been ok with them adopting her. It would have been hard, but I’d have let her go. That family found another pug, a better fit for their home, and in the months that followed, a few people called me interested in my Petunia. I wasn’t too excited about any of them. Really, if you’re going to adopt Petunia, you need to be able to give her a better life than she has here, and she’s got it pretty good.
Two weeks ago, someone called that was interested in her. Everything sounded good, seemed like a good fit, so I bravely let Petunia be adopted. The look on her face, the look of confusion when they put her in the car shattered my heart. I didn’t cry, telling myself this is good, this is right. Until the next day when I started bawling because I missed my little dog so much. Josh even brought me petunias to plant in the yard, in honor of her.
As you might already know, things in the house did not work out. One person in the family loved Petunia, the the rest did not love her so much. Because she is not cute, she is not quick, she doesn’t walk well, and she does require a lot of assistance to get through the day. So she came back, and I have to say, I was pretty happy. Quinn was ecstatic and squealed and gave Petunia tons of hugs. It has taken a few days for Petunia to settle back in, she was pretty depressed when I picked her up. I think she missed us. She did not do her happy dance when she saw me, which crushed me. She did perk up a bit when we got home and she saw the other dogs and Quinn. Now she’s back to following me around trying to kill me via tripping.
The thing with Petunia is I just love her. My other dogs work, they do sports, they earn a living by being demo dogs, and helping me teach group classes and private lessons. They have all paid their way in one way or another. Petunia? Petunia is a complete freeloader. She does nothing. Some days she responds to her name, others she can’t hear a thing. She snatches food, and will bite your hand if she thinks you have something food like in it. I don’t do anything with her but carry her around, dress her in embarrassing outfits, and pet her. She requires nothing from me except that I remember to feed her twice a day. She’s grateful when I do pet her, and enjoys hanging out on my lap while I type. Petunia and Quinn have a complete love affair, which makes my heart cramp every time I see them together.
Petunia has helped teach me why normal people have dogs. Just to love them. She is utterly, and completely useless. She doesn’t play, she doesn’t do obedience, she’ll never be a demo dog, hell, she doesn’t even walk on a leash. But she loves me. Just because. I don’t even know why.
She’s back now, maybe to stay, maybe not. I know that this is her home, and that we are her heart, but the unfortunate reality is that I have four dogs who are all hitting geriatric status this year. Four old dogs who are all going to start racking up vet bills together and need their butts wiped, together, or some other fabulously gross thing. I really, really can’t afford to add another senior dog with known health issues to the mix. I just can’t. So Petunia will remain adoptable, and a ward of Pug Rescue. Hopefully people will just donate tons of money in her name and she’ll just have a nice, fat medical fund so she can live out her days here. I will be pickier, and demand that those interested in her come and meet her several times, get to know her before moving her again. Because I don’t want to see that confused look on her face again. For now, I will enjoy every day that she is here, and do everything I can do make her days full of love, cuddles, and give her tons of kisses. Smelly old dog.
Because I just love her.
Posted on February 25th, 2010 by michelle
Filed under: Foster dogs, My dogs, Random run ins, The Naked Part | 3 Comments »
