"She's Such a Sensitive Girl"

It's a good thing that I am not generally terribly shy, cause as the mama of a pug you get asked a lot of questions. When we go for our walks we get all sorts of reactions, but -everybody- stops to say hello. They can't help it. Smeagol calls to them with her adorable ugliness. Yesterday was a particularly enjoyable walk day. On our first walk we met a young man and his year and a half old twins. They were playing catch but kept forgetting to catch the ball as they saw us walk by. Finally, I asked the boys if they would like to pet her. They nodded with big eyes and their dad looked nervous and said 'boys, gently, very gently'. So, I brought Smeag over and at first the boys were too scared. But I held the little girl close and showed them how to pet her. They both tentatively reached out and sort of just tapped her head with their hands. She didn't care though, anyone touching her is good. Eventually she fell over and showed them her belly so they could touch there. The twins giggled and giggled and I told them 'see, she loves it!' After that one of the the boys (not very good talkers yet at 18 months) kept going 'slovesid' absolutely gleefully. After a few minutes I had to pick Smeag up and carry her away cause she loved the little boys so much. As I walked away I still heard the one boy going 'slovesid!!!!'.

Then on our second walk we met a sweet older man with a sheltie. It was an exciting day for Smeag cause we thought we had pretty much met all the kids and dogs in the complex, but these were some new friends. The sheltie was twice as big as Smeagol, but SO scared of her. It was hilarious :) The sheltie's name was Sebastian and Sebastion's dad told us that there was a pug rescue here in Georgia (when I mentioned that we wanted another puggie). We managed to tear Sebastian and Smeagol apart after about 15 minutes and just now I remembered about the pug rescue so I started looking online.

Poopily, even rescued pugs cost between $125 and $250 to adopt, which we do not have and won't for a long time :( But, I greedily looked anyway. After a while I selected a couple of favourites but then discovered that one of my faves had passed away last week. Her bio had been changed to 'Six has passed away, she will no longer suffer, feel confused or hurt'. So, I'm sobbing away as I read this, feeling so sorry for that poor little girl. Then as I'm still wiping the tears, I found another site with non purebred small dogs that are available. The link automatically took me to a page that I realized later was labelled 'last chance dogs'. Each dog on that page said 'this dog will no longer be available for adoption after (date)'. I'm thinking 'that's an odd way to phrase that', until I realized that that meant that they are going to PUT THEM TO SLEEP IF I DON"T TAKE THEM! So now my little heart is breaking and I want to take them all home. Most of these organizations need foster moms and dads to take care of rescued dogs til they get adopted. But I think Smeagol and I would both get so attached that we would either wind up adopting every one or spending a week being depressed after they were adopted or, heaven forbid, put down.

I keep thinking of the story my mom tells of how when I was 4 ish, we had a mouse in the house (we had lots due to living on a farm). I HATED the mouse and shrieked every time I saw or heard it. Mom and Dad put up traps and one day Mom and I heard the trap snap. We went to look and the mouse was dead. Mom cheered and asked if i wasn't glad that the mouse was finally gone. But when she looked over at me, she said I plopped down onto the floor and bawled about the poor mouse and did it hurt him to die and would he go to heaven and could we pray for the little mousie? My mom said she knew right then that it was going to be a 'hard life' for me. I remember listening at the top of the stairs when my parents had company and always knowing that they were talking about me when I heard the phrase 'she's such a sensitive girl'. Good or bad, I have just spent the last half hour wiping tears away for dogs that I have never met that -might- be put to sleep.