Wednesday, December 03, 2008

This is our new ward.

We are fostering her for a while. We have been calling her Betty (Betty Boop). Betty is a sweetie, even Buster likes her, although he is a little resentful of all the attention she gets. They are about the same size, except that Buster weighs more (he's 15 pounds!) and Betty's head is bigger.



I've been online learning about the care and feeding of pugs. They are very sensitive dogs that cannot tolerate chills or heat above 80 degrees. They have delicate constitutions and are prone to all kinds of ailments, foremost among them breathing issues and obesity. Betty snuffles and huffs and wheezes and snorts and snores. The information I have been reading suggests that there is no way to avoid life-threatening or quality-of-life illnesses, which makes one wonder how the breed has survived these last several thousand years. They even require a special diet (Pat has refused to cook for the dog).




They sleep a lot, about as much as a cat, which is half of the day. But she gets very excited and squirrely when I walk through the door, and she loves her 4 or 5 short walks a day.


Who can resist?

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