Petunias for Petunia

Petunia was not love at first sight. I saw a bedraggled little Pug that, quite honestly, wasn’t all that cute. Wall eyed, with a sad little tail, she was no one’s dream dog. It was her spirit, her unending ability to love and be loved that made me fall for this little, broken old dog. Someone else’s throw away became my treasure. Petunia worked her way into the fabric of our family very quickly, never having any problems with the many other dogs that live and are fostered here. Petunia liked pretty much everyone, and if she didn’t, well, then you must be obnoxious. She was endlessly patient with my toddler, accepting awkward hugs and sloppy baby kisses with grace. Petunia did have a hard time getting around, and fell down frequently, knocked off balance by another dog, me, the wind. Yet, she had more dignity in that little body than most humans ever possess. Never one to complain, she’d just get back up and keep going. There is definitely a lesson there somewhere.

Petunia did get adopted in February, and it seemed like a great home. I let her go with a heavy heart, hoping that this would be a wonderful place for her to live out her remaining years. Because that’s what fosters do, we love them until they make their way to their forever homes. Well, Petunia had other ideas, and she came back two weeks later, being too much to care for. I was thrilled to have her home. Here she would stay, being away was so hard on her. She was very depressed when she came home, Petunia had missed her family. It took her a few days to bounce back to her happy little self. It was decided that with her medical issues and care requirements she would become a Forever Foster, and Pug Rescue would be responsible for her medical bills, and she would stay here, with us, where she was comfortable and happy.

Petunia had yet another hurdle, and in April her eye ulcerated. They considered removing it, but at surgery time, managed to save the eye. Eye drops four times a day, wearing a cone, antibiotics, again she approached these new challenges with endless grace. You may have seen her at the May party, riding in her pink stroller with flowers on her cone. Petunia’s eye healed up beautifully, and I was grateful that my little dog with so many disabilities wouldn’t have to learn how to get around with only one eye.

Petunia started having more troubles in late June. The vets thought she had a sinus infection, and treated her accordingly. But even after meds, she was still “off”. I knew my girl wasn’t feeling well. On July 7th, I discovered a mass growing in her mouth, and realized that it was growing into her sinus cavity and putting pressure on her eye. It must have grown fast, because the swelling appeared overnight. I could tell she was in pain, and I knew that this type of tumor could not be operated on, and even if it could, she was telling me she was tired, and done. It broke my heart, but part of loving dogs is taking on the responsibility of letting them go. On July 8th, Petunia died in my arms. Peacefully and gently, surrounded by her family giving her hugs, kisses, and telling her how much we loved her. Not a bad way to go for a little dog that no one wanted.

I miss Petunia every day, even with four dogs of my own, an endless parade of fosters, and a toddler, my house is quieter now. There is no one shuffling along behind me, snoring on my lap at night. There is no one sitting with me while I dry my hair, just hanging out. Petunia was, plain and simple, my friend. And I miss her. I’m so very glad I got to know her. I learned a lot from Petunia. That complaining gets you nowhere so you might as well just get up and keep going, that love really is blind – because when I look at her pictures now, I see a beautiful dog with a lovely soul.

Petunia was, quite literally, saved by Pug Rescue. This is where your money goes, and why we work so hard to raise funds. Without Pug Rescue being there to spring Petunia from the shelter, transport her to a foster home, and take care of her medical expenses; she would have been left at the shelter, and surely been euthanized then. Instead, she got to spend her last year being pampered, loved, and enjoying life as a beloved member of our family. Petunia’s story is not a particularly special one, visit our Strollin’ Seniors page and you will see her story repeated over and over again. Most rescues will not take senior dogs, because they are such a financial burden. Pug Rescue takes them, and takes excellent care of them. There is just something special about being loved by a senior dog. They’ve given so much in their lives, shouldn’t we give back to them when they are older and need us more? Consider adopting a senior Pug, you won’t regret it. If you can’t adopt, consider donating in honor of one of our Strollin’ Seniors. We will all thank you.

Thanks for letting me share my story. Thanks for letting me share my Petunia. Rest easy, my friend. You will always be in my heart.

Petunia ? – 7/8/10

While Petunia was out, they also looked down her trachea with a scope and discovered that she had everted laryngeal saccules. Basically little bulgy things that make it hard to breathe. They removed those, and we’re hoping that as the swelling goes down, she’ll breathe easier and better. So far, it seems the same, but she’s on so many drugs and in so much pain, who knows.

She howled most of last night, I hand fed her and she howled while I fed her! Never seen a dog manage that before. She’s quiet if I hold her or pet her, but with four other dogs and a toddler, I simply can’t just sit with her. So, I do the best I can. She’s on lots of pain meds, antibiotics, and eye drops. Three times a day, so it’s a project. She’s confused by the cone, and keeps getting stuck, she’ll walk into a wall, get the cone stuck against it, and not be able to figure out how to move, so I’ve rescued her a dozen times today at least. I tried keeping her safely in an xpen, and she howled and thrashed. So, I let her follow me around the house.

We’re grateful that she survived surgery, and that the outcome was good. I’m thankful for everyone’s support and positive energy. I will be bringing Petunia to the Pug Party on Saturday in Del Mar, so if you want to visit her, she’ll be riding in a pink stroller and wearing a cone decorated with flowers!

She’s in her crate now, finally asleep, and propped up on lots of fluffy pillows. She loves her crate, and often won’t settle at night until I put her to bed. That said, I’d like to see my bed now, too, so goodnight! Will post pathetic pug pics tomorrow. Poor little dog. Anesthesia was no fun.

The fact that this dog continues to exist happily despite her many health problems is astounding to me. The vets said that Petunia seems fine, isn’t sick, and should survive surgery just fine. I worry though. She can’t breathe on a good day with her narrow trachea. And she’s mostly deaf, and now will have to learn to work with just one eye. She didn’t see well to begin with. She falls down enough with her back problems, now she can bump into things, too! Poor little dog.

With this new development, we have decided that Petunia will become a Forever Foster. She will remain a ward of Pug Rescue, but she will not be available for adoption and will instead live out her days here with us. Not that potential adopters were lining up for her. Because you know, so many people really dream of adopting a dog that can’t walk well, falls down a lot, stops breathing frequently, is deaf, and mostly just putters about looking for comfy spots to lay down. I don’t feel that it would be fair to make her adjust to a new environment with this added disability. She needs to stay here, with people she trusts and loves, where she knows where things are.

I considered euthanizing her. I didn’t want to put her through the stress and trauma of surgery and recovery. I want only what is best for her. Suzi and the doctors assure me she is strong enough for surgery. Still, I worry. If I know Petunia, she will take on this challenge the way she takes on life, with not much grace, but a whole lot of courage and an amazing amount of heart. This dog, she falls down, and she just gets back up. No fuss, no muss, she just keeps on going. There is a lesson for me here.

Petunia has been full of lessons for me. What unconditional love really is. That even with the cards stacked against you, you can still be happy and enjoy sitting in the sun. That you really can’t always choose who you love. I love this dog. Quinn loves this dog. She is part of the family here, and while my heart is heaving a sigh of relief that I won’t be moving her, that she’ll stay here with us, at the same time I am terrified of Monday’s surgery. So please, think positive thoughts for my brave little dog. Say a prayer, make a wish, sprinkle fairy dust – whatever it is you do, do it for her. I think that Petunia has more lessons to teach me.

Please consider donating a few dollars on Petunia’s behalf to Pug Rescue of San Diego. They take paypal, and put in the notes that it’s for her.

I took my crew to the park to play ball while the baby slept off her play date exhaustion, ran Karma and Teak down, easy enough, and got Dyson out. Yes, Dyson is the jerk who wears a remote. But it wasn’t charged, but we’ve had a really good run of no dog fights or bad interactions, and I only go to the park when there is little foot traffic so I figured we’d be fine. I’m hyper vigilant when he is out because well, I just am.

I was throwing his ball and someone pulled up behind my van. She got out, came up to me, and very politely said “I have a small dog on a leash, would it be ok for us to get it out since yours if off lead and playing?” Yay for giving me the chance to respond! I said, “No, actually, he’ll probably try to kill your dog, but I’ll be more than happy to put him away. Thanks SO MUCH for letting me know you were here!”

I immediately put D in the van, no problems, no drama, took all of like a minute, and I again told her how grateful I was she’d talked to me. What do you know, she said her dog was a jerk too and liked to antagonize bigger dogs. We completely avoided a problem by actually, I know, wait for it, speaking! Exciting, isn’t it?

Everyone was safe, no one got pissed off (dogs included!), and it was just so nice that someone recognized the need to communicate. I’m happy to put my dog away, after all, it’s NOT a dog park, which is why we go there, to minimize contact with other dogs. If my dogs were friendly, if I were friendly, we’d go play at a dog park. But my dogs are not friendly, and have been attacked too many times and are defensive. I like to play ball with my dogs, which always creates frenzy at a dog park. My dogs don’t play with other dogs, they play with me.

It was just so nice that someone actually spoke to me, asked if my dog was safe, instead of just ignoring me. Fellow owners of jerky dogs unite!!

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.

“You know you sound really unpleasant, right?
I typed ‘ irritating dog lady ‘ into Google, and your blog came up. I think you were first. Try it.
Also, you misspelled -assistant- when you described your husband.
That’s all.”

I was kind of entertained and really wanted to address it then, but have not had the time. Firstly – WOW! I’m moving up in the world if you can find me by googling “irritating dog lady”! That’s kinda cool if you ask me. Secondly, who in the world is so bored that they actually google “irritating dog lady”? I guess Matt is. Well, thanks Matt. I’m guessing that Matt really didn’t read the post – this one that he was commenting about. Or perhaps his reading comprehension skills just suck. Who knows? I’m thinking, either way, he has a lot of time on his hands.

The point, actually, was to sound unpleasant. I was pissed off, irritated, and just sort of in awe of the stupidity of some people.

I’m still often just blown away by how in your face and rude people can be – especially when you have a baby, but I have to be nicer now. I’m teaching classes and the Training Director over there, so I have to make nice with, well, everyone. I will still get in someone’s face if they let their dog too close to my baby, but I do it as politely as possible, and usually I blame it on the baby. “Oh, sorry, she can look at your dog, but she can’t pet because she doesn’t understand that ears are not for pulling yet” and then I step in between the dog and the baby. She doesn’t understand. She’s a baby. She tortures my dogs, yanks their hair, pokes their eyes and explores their noses. They don’t care. Your dog might. I don’t really want to stress test your dog that far, do you?

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks to Matt, I think I will now start referring to myself as that “Irritating Dog Lady,” cause it kind of has a nice ring to it. I do have to ask though – why the hell were you googling that anyway? Don’t you like porn? Or have a nice myspace account you could be updating? I mean, really.

*******************************************
Keri,

I’m so sorry, somehow your comment got lost in my mail…. as things sometimes do since I’m often reading them on the run! I will do my best to get back with a proper post, but I just wanted to tell you that losing them….. *sigh* it is the worst thing. But you survive, because you must, and it often makes room for another dog to come into your life that you need just as much. Without Redwood passing, I would never had have room for Dyson, and I’ve learned so much from him. I miss her every day, every day, but I wouldn’t be who or where I am without having known her. Having her, loving her, created much of who I am, and losing her shaped me just as much. But I survived. And I like to think she would have been proud of where I’ve gotten myself to.

The day will come when you have to take a deep breath and say goodbye to your “SPGR”, and you will do it. You will be strong because you owe it to him. And when your tears are fewer, another cold nose will poke at your hand, and you’ll look into another set of soft eyes, and love again.

Mom is at work, so I’m here alone with this freak show. They are, exuberant, to say the least. My dogs are giddy with the freedom of the dog door and have been racing in and out all day long. My Mom’s older dogs, JB and Piper mostly slept on the couches, but her puppy, dear heavens that puppy. Simi is busy. Very very busy. He’s in, he’s out, he’s in my face, he’s on the bed, he’s bringing me q-tips, he’s back outside. Holy crap.

I was checking email this morning and he brought me a q-tip. At least he brings them to you. Then I get up, and discover that he’s brought dirt clods in the house and strung them all over the hallway. I get the vacuum to clean that up, and the door bell rings. I’m sorry, all the training in the world isn’t keeping seven dogs quiet when the door bell rings. They go nuts, I go out to get my box. I come back in to put the baby down and Simi bolts out the door to say hi to the nice FedEx lady, who thank dawg, was nice and stopped so he could maul her with kisses and I could catch him. Cause Simi comes to Mom, but not so much to me. So here I am, baby in one arm, 20 lbs of pug puppy in the other trying to figure out how to get in the door. I was winded. Fatties, both of them.

Finally I get the hall vacuumed, and I call Mom to complain about her beast, look down and there is a trail of q-tips from the bedroom door to the bathroom – when did he have time to do THAT? And Simi is on Mom’s bed with dirt everywhere and a bone he pilfered from my room downstairs. I swear, he was JUST outside with that bone not two minutes ago. Busy, busy, busy.

I gave up and shut all the doors, thinking I could keep an eye on him better than way. But he’s good. Slick, that one. Not really bad though, just busy. He and Teak have teamed up and are racing around the house together, in and out the door, up over couches and tables. We are agility pugs, we are. Tables are no reason to stop. The baby was cracking up at them racing around, which made me crack up, cause how cool is it that she’s thinks dogs playing is funny?

Dyson has been suspiciously absent most of the day, hunting bunnies I suppose. Remember last year when he pulled boards up off the deck because he got in trouble for digging to get to the bunnies? Ya, that was fun. I’m afraid to go outside.

Mom came home for lunch, and everyone raced in to say hello, I heard Dyson crawling through the dog door, which was built for 20lb dogs mind you – he’s 100. His head barely fits through, I’m not really sure what gymnastics he performs to get through the dog door, but he’s doing it regularly. Mom starts laughing, says “Look at your dog” and I turn and the poor dog door has given up the fight. The entire door has come out of the wall and is stuck around Dyon’s middle. Seriously, if my Dad were here, he’d kill us both. Me and Dyson that is. It was funny. But dear lord, animal, seriously?

They are finally, finally all worn out and lined up on the couches sleeping. There is a lot of snoring going on, and while I’d love to get a picture of it for you, if I move, the moment will be ruined. Karma and Piper are sleeping on one couch, and the rest of the pugs and Dyson are lined up on the other like little doggie dominoes. Poor Simi looks absolutely exhausted. He’s been busy, you know.

These feel like stolen moments, Q and I wrapped up in our own little world. I know that someday I’m going to look back on these days, these days of just me and her having our own little love affair, and be so sad that they are over. These are my days. She’s still little enough to not argue about what she wears or what we do, instead is simply thrilled to play with me. She laughs at my antics, and thinks being tickled and gobbled up is probably the best thing to happen to a baby ever.

While I enjoy going out and about and being part of the grown up world, I am also completely content to spend days at home feeding her, bathing her, playing silly games, and just tending to her. Which, if you’ve ever had a baby, you’ll know that the tending can easily suck up an entire day. She’s eating baby food now, and sitting up, rolling over, and *this* close to crawling. She has come to love her baths, where before only a shower with Mom or Dad would do, now that she has a baby bathtub, she will kick and splash for as long as I let her. Her favorite thing is to bounce like a maniac in her little bouncer chair thing. Now that her feet reach the floor, the child is a bouncing fool. This has carried over to kicking in the tub, bouncing when I hold her, rocking on her hands and knees, and a general love of being tossed about. Funny girl.

These are my days. My parents are still young enough that I don’t have to worry about their health so much. My baby is still my baby, and not running off to discover the world yet. I hope that as she grows we will still have so much fun, and many adventures, but my heart is convinced that these days are the best ones. These days where she and I are just wrapped up in each other, and the great big world doesn’t really intrude so much. Now, when she wants nothing more than to cuddle up in my arms and be snuggled. Now, when I am still enough. The heartaches and small pains of life haven’t touched her. No betrayals of friends, no comprehension of ugly things like death and destruction, no realization yet that life can be anything other than safe and secure. Her biggest worry is when her next meal is coming. Not a bad life, really. I wish that I could make it so that was always her biggest worry. Of course, as a mother, I want to protect her from everything. I want to keep her wrapped up in my arms, forever, if she’d let me. Yet, in the way it has always been, my job, my duty, is to prepare her to go out there and be part of the great big world. To learn to keep herself steady, so that when the world tries to toss her about, she can find her footing on her own. I know that, and I will do my best. If I could just hang on a little tighter to these days. I try to capture them as best I can with pictures and words, but every day that I celebrate a new milestone or accomplishment with her is a day that my heart aches a little because she’s growing up.

I never thought I’d be completely wrapped up in someone so small. This thing, motherhood? It’s amazing and mind bending and awful and wonderful. It is the hardest and most amazing thing I’ve ever done. Every time I think I’ve got a handle on it, I look at her and am knocked flat by the sheer emotion of everything that is her. I’ve loved a lot in my life, hard love that seemed to consume me, but nothing, nothing ever prepared me for this. That she would soften my edges, make me see things in a whole new light, teach me that love with humans can indeed be unconditional (of course I thought that only existed with dogs). That this tiny little bit of humanity that would hold my entire world in her fist. A friend of mine the other day remarked that his wife’s pregnancy was an “everyday miracle.” That about sums it up for me.

She’s napping on my lap now, but making waking up moves, so I will let you go now, and go back to my silly little games. Take care, all.

I just am tired of all the whining people are doing about “Oh, he should have chosen a shelter dog. Waah, waah, everyone in America is stupid and incapable of choosing a pet for themselves so they will all do what the President did!” That we all may do research into what breed of dog is best suited for our family and actually go to a responsible breeder. The world would be a better place. Dogs and people would be much happier.

Everyone is so down on any breeder. Some of us out here actually want purebred dogs. Purebred dogs not from a shelter. Purebred dogs whose lineage is known, who fit the breed standard, and who will hopefully turn into decent members of their breed. I don’t have anything against adopting dogs – please, adopt if and when you can. My lab is a wonderful, wonderful animal. Lab through and through – loves water, retrieves anything, loyal to the core. He’s from a shelter. Picked up running stray, he sat in the shelter for six weeks because he is the size of a small pony. As with any adopted dog though, he came with plenty of baggage. Some of it he’s still hanging onto. If I’d gotten him as a puppy, it would have been much, much easier to handle these issues.

It’s one thing to discover a budding dog aggression problem with your puppy and take steps to fix it, it’s quite another to discover at a dog park that your new 100lb friend likes to make unprovoked attacks on any intact male dog. Yippee!

As a parent, I think Obama made the best decision for his daughters. A six month old puppy is not likely to have any issues that can’t be fixed with good training. And yes, yes, he could’ve gotten a puppy from a shelter, and likely would have if his daughters didn’t have allergies. But they do, and their health and safety needs to come first.

So let’s lay off the “only shelter dogs are good dogs” rant because that simply isn’t true. The dog didn’t come from a puppy mill, so there’s that. I simply don’t think anyone, President too, should be harassed about wanting a dog of a certain breed, doing research, and purchasing a puppy that will most likely suit their needs. You live with your dog for a long, long time, it’s better for everyone if it’s a dog you actually enjoy.