Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat

HI KAREN! I love the sound of Tani, and now I've got an image in my head of this little pug in a uniform going round telling everyone off. I think we need a pic (hint...)

Elsie will be nine in November. She looks older, I think, because she's so grey. She's been going grey since she was about eighteen months, but it's sped up a lot the last couple of years. At the moment she looks like a negative panda. At this rate, I'm going to wind up with a polar bear. 

She's a true survivor, and in many respects it was my experience with Elsie that kept me going through Meg's struggles. She was rescued direct from the breeder, who was going to put her down because she wasn't thriving. This is putting it mildly. I didn't realise when I took her on, but she had septic peritonitis, pancreatitis and hepatitis all at once. Her liver was so inflamed that it had actually split open. When she was ten weeks old, they took out her intestines to try and find the cause of the problem (I mean, they put them back in again, obviously LOL), but they never did. We think it was some sort of trauma in the womb. So many times, I thought she'd had it, and so many times I agonised over whether it was fair to keep trying, and even if she did survive would she have any quality of life etc. etc. I suppose you kind of take the lead from them, don't you, and she was just so determined not to give up. It was quite remarkable that so tiny a creature could contain such a powerful will to survive. She just would not give up. It wasn't until she was about nine months old that I started to feel confident she would make it to adulthood, by which point she was irredeemably spoiled (of course). Now she's almost nine years old and in excellent health; she has no ongoing issues at all. At our vets they have a portrait of her on the mantlepiece (its in an old townhouse), because they say they've never known a dog to survive a start like that. Elsie is my small, sturdy beacon of inextinguishable hope.

She's actually extremely playful, far more so than Meg, at least with other dogs. What she hates is to be left out. I think in the video she's jealous of the log that Meg is playing with... They very rarely play together. I love it when they do, but I guess they're just so different. Meg is a hunting, chasing girl, while Elsie loves wrestling and tugger. 

I often get asked if Elsie's part pug. She isn't, but she does have certain puggish qualities. Above all, her stubborn determination, which I treasure so much, because that's what saved her. She truly is the most stalwart of friends.

Here's a pic of her as a pup. She had to wear a body warmer because her coat was so thin. And after this I promise, no more pics for at least ten minutes...