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 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.

After conferring with Suzi and the doctors who had worked so hard to make Hazel comfortable, we all decided that the kindest thing to do was to let her go. Even after the swelling from surgery was down, Hazel has been breathing like this all of her life, which has caused irreparable damage to her larynx. So our options were to keep her heavily sedated so she could breathe, which is no way for a perky little dog to live; do a tracheotomy, which she likely wouldn’t survive; or euthanize her.

It was very, very difficult, and my heart hurts, but I feel that euthanizing her was the kindest thing. We tried every trick in the book, short of more surgeries that her little body just couldn’t take, and the poor girl was still just gasping for air and exhausted by the effort. Today, even heavily sedated, she was still wheezing and unable to draw a full breath. I couldn’t do that to her anymore.

I am saddest that someone let her be this way for so long. A simple surgery as a pup would have fixed this and saved her many years of misery. We think perhaps she was a younger dog, but that her body was just so worn out from never having enough oxygen and the constant fight for breath. I am sad that someone out there abandoned this little dog. That, to them, she wasn’t worth the effort.

She was absolutely worth the effort to us. I held her and cuddled her and told her how many people loved her. I covered her face with kisses and told her she was a good dog. That she was worth the effort. I told her to look for my beloved Redwood and Rowan on the other side, that they would look out for her until I come to get them.

Rest easy Hazel. Goodbye little friend.

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Please consider making a donation in Hazel’s honor to Pug Rescue of San Diego. The money will go to help pay her vet bills, and the many, many vet bills incurred helping all of our senior dogs. They are worth it.

I had emailed Suzi saying that after a year off of fostering so I could get my human baby into the world and started off right, I was ready to foster again, and would really like to take on a senior. That maybe we would be ok with a long term foster, as long as we could open our home to a girl so we wouldn’t have any more pissing wars with the resident male dogs in the house (brats). Maybe a little girl, I do love those tiny Pugs, a petite lady who just needs a place to lay her head for a bit, and perhaps enjoy her golden years lounging in the sun and living in a house that is made up primarily of comfy dog beds.

Never one to leave a foster home wanting for long, I got a reply from Suzi within 24 hours. “Have I got the dog for you! She’s tiny, and sweet, and if her many surgeries go well, she’ll need quite a bit of care.” I kind of already knew I’d take her, but went to Cuyamaca anyway to meet her. Formalities, you know. I got to meet her before her surgeries, and of course I fell in love. She’s perfect. She is completely calm with my human child, and she’s giving me kisses and leaning into my hand as I scratch her ear. Of course I’ll be her foster Mom, we’ll figure it out. It’ll all be fine.

Someone at the shelter had named her Ethel, and while that’s a fine name, I felt like she needed something with a bit more strength. Something that worked into my household better. I have a long line of beloved dogs named after trees, and even more pets named after flowers and crystals. So of course, for her, I looked to the trees. I wanted something strong, but suitable for a sweet little lady. Maple? Clover? Aspen? No, no Aspen is more of a Golden Retriever. Hmm. Bramble? Nope, too hard to say. Bamboo? Hazel? Ooh, wait, Hazel. I like it. Even better, it has some great symbolism – wands made out of Hazel wood symbolize white magic and healing. Yes, yes, she needs that. Hazel trees themselves symbolize hidden wisdom, and over the centuries Hazel wood was used for protection against evil. I like it, Hazel she will be. It fits. It’s soft, with just a bit of an edge, perfect.

As I write this, my little Hazel is back at the vet, in the emergency center getting oxygen and fluids. I did get to bring her home after her surgeries – a hernia repair, spay, and fixing her elongated palate, but she was still having such a hard time breathing that she needed the extra help. The surgery on her palate caused some swelling, as surgeries will, but that makes it hard to breathe, so she breathes harder, which makes it swell more and causes irritation. Sweet little Hazel has been a trooper, and only today seemed to be very fatigued from all the work breathing. Not to worry, her prognosis is good. We just need to give her some time to rest, heal from the surgery, and then she should be able to breathe comfortably, perhaps for the first time in her life. I look forward to Hazel feeling better. In the two days she has been here, she’s shown herself to be a sweet, snuggly girl. Happy to see me, gets along great with my other dogs, is fantastic with the human baby (and she’s rather a pain, what with all the poking and squealing), and is just a lovely, lovely little Pug.

I think that once she feels better, I think maybe she’ll be adoptable. She’s just got so much pep, even exhausted today she twirled around on her back feet with excitement when she saw a leash. What a love! I think that she has years left, and I think that she may move on to a forever home. I’m ok with that. I think that someone else may get to love her too. Of course, she is welcome to stay here as long as she needs to, and I will cuddle her and love her and care for her as my own. And if she stays here for a very long time, because you know how hard it is to find forever homes for seniors, that’s ok too.

Hazel is what Pug Rescue is about. So many senior dogs. They need us because they are the ones who get left behind. The ones who don’t get adopted because they are “too old”, “too sick”, or “too needy”. I can’t imagine that little Hazel was in the shelter so long and no one noticed what a gem she was. How could you miss that happy little curly tail, those sparkly little eyes? I am ever so grateful for all the volunteers that got her here from L.A., and all of the work that goes into fundraising so that Hazel could have her surgeries, and so that she could be cared for tonight. The thing that amazes me is that her story is one of many. That we, as a group, help SO MANY Pugs. I for one, thank you all, I am proud to be a member of Pug Rescue, and I am thrilled to get to foster such a lovely girl. I’m sad for whatever circumstances in Hazel’s life left her without a home or people of her own, but I’m glad that she found her way into our hands. Because she’s safe now. She couldn’t have ended up with a better group of people to tend to her. I’ve worked with many different rescues, and Pug Rescue of San Diego is snorts and wags above the rest!

Thank you all so very much. I’ll keep you updated on Hazel’s progress. Perhaps Hazel will be able to meet you all at the Pugtoberfest. Looking forward to showing off my sweet little friend.