Day 3
I’m a foster mom. A PUG foster mom to be exact. Well, not anymore … cuz I flunked fosterhood. Read on.
Three plus years ago I must have had the word SUCKER tattooed onto my forehead – invisible to all except the Colorado Pug Rescue group. They are a worthwhile group and angels on earth … who also have an uncanny ability of finding people who have a soft heart. You know – people like me – SUCKERS! If you’re quick – you will see where this is going.
I was minding my own business that fateful day in August when I received a call from the rescue group – could I do an emergency evac and could I foster two older pugs for the afternoon? The key word here is … AFTERNOON.
I was new to the group and being in/sane when it comes to animals that need help I jumped at the chance to help out some four-legged babies in distress.
I drove the hour south, picked up “the girls” and stopped at McDonalds and got them each a no-onion cheeseburger (onions are toxic to dogs) on the way home. I think that was my undoing right there. Watching hungry pugs eat cheeseburgers is not for the faint of heart; kind of disgusting actually … but, even then, in between the snorts and the grunts and the food falling out the too-wide-to-contain-anything mouths and the visibility of (baby needs an ortho) displaced and rotting teeth – I found myself falling in love with these poor neglected creatures.
The older of the two is Yoshi (aka: Mushi and Sushi by friends and family who can’t remember her name!). She is a sweet old gal – a rotund football of a pug with a graying face and black eyes. She looks very much like a cross between Yoda’s ghost and ET. When I got her the end of her tongue was cracked and hard … from having it stick out of her mouth. A lolling tongue is not a good thing to have when you live where the humidity is rarely above 13%! So – we (Sam and I) would push it back into her mouth whenever we’d see it out … and now it stays inside – except for the tiniest bit, at times, a fine pink sliver peeking out of pug lips.
And then there’s Dori. Everyone thinks she’s a puppy because she is so tiny. She is nicknamed “Tilt a Whirl” by a friend of mine due to her constant head tilt (we think she was beaten). She was mostly skin and bones when I got her. Her family fed both dogs one small bowl of dry food (one bowl for two dogs in 24 hours) … and well, Yosh (at the time) could muscle her way through a pack of wolves for food (she is quite the chow hound) and though neither was getting enough Yosh got the majority of the food offered and Dori was basically starving. At the time her name was Doodle … and well, you can see why we changed it. It was a stupid name and she reminded me of Dori in Finding Nemo because she had such a positive spirit … so, Dori it became. And the rename made no difference to her because she is pretty much deaf … and couldn’t hear me call her anyway. She has enormously large black eyes and has very little vision in one of them – totally blind in the other. Tiny tilted head, BIG eyes and long squirrel-like toes … she has got to be a mix of something as she is not your typical pug; her build is slimmer, taller, and her nose is not smushed into her brain but she does have the pig tail and the snorting qualifications. She is my sweetheart.
When I picked up “the girls” we had an hour of travel time – the whole of which I wondered what I was doing bringing home two more animals to two cats, big dog (lab) Moby and (uh oh) wild and crazy (pug) Gertie. But Mobes – mother of 30 (another story) and Gertie welcomed the two newcomers in and all was good … cuz the new girls were just going to be with us for the afternoon. Key word again … AFTERNOON.
Well, plans changed … and the afternoon turned into a few days … which turned into the weekend … which turned into a few weeks … and then months. After the initial few days I took them both to our local vet. Neither of them had fur on their tummies or legs (from sleeping on cement) and both had wicked ear infections. So, we left from the vet that day with all kinds of salves and balms along with appointments for each of them to have their teeth looked at. Those appointments came later as did the extraction of most of each of their teeth. Ow.
And, months later, there I was (again) minding my own business … being kind and sweet and fostering pugs when Dori looked at me, one night, with those gigantic eyes and all sweetness and my heart melted and I realized that there was no way in hell I was going to give them up. So, I flunked being a foster mom and started the adoption process.
They both turn 14 this year. Dori screeches if she can’t find me – or if she can’t get up or down the stairs … she needs help maneuvering them. She is my shadow and is constantly by my side and when I come home (even from taking out the garbage cans) I get a hero’s welcome! She is a sweet, sweet being. Yosh had a stroke a couple of years ago and has since lost the use of her back legs. I carry her everywhere and she has a comfy bed made up for her where she spends most of her time. But she is a happy little dog and always lets me know when she needs something and shows her gratitude with plentiful licks by that crispy-ended long tongue! I couldn’t be happier.
Note: Please be kind to your pets. Spay and neuter as suggested by your vet. And if you are thinking of bringing a new pet into your life/home consider contacting your local breed-specific rescue group and adopting an older animal in need.