And then there was the Princess Pea

You have seen her picture in a previous post sitting with Basil. She is the foster dog that never left. The day we met, she had been abandoned in her carrier at Austin Humane Society in the middle of the night. The accountant, who often worked through the night, found her as she was leaving at 7 am that morning and placed her, carrier and all, on the counter in the receiving department.

When I came in at 8 am, I peeked into the carrier and saw the tiniest little dog I had ever seen. She was hairless, with little holes like swiss cheese at the tips of her ears..... and she was growling at me! We ran her immediately into see one of the shelters’ partner vets, who actually knew who her owners were because he had seen her the previous week, At that time he had skin scraped her and found nothing, and told them they should do bloodwork and have her ears cropped and biopsied. Her previous owners had apparently decided they could not afford her medical care and instead decided to dump her outside the shelter in the hopes that we would look after her.

The fates were smiling down on her that day because I decided to take her home and foster her. Though honestly, I thought I was bringing her home to die. At 6 months she didn't even weigh a pound, with her hair loss, her ears, and the fact we couldn't get her to eat anything, I really thought I was going to bring her home and keep her happy until she passed on.

Well, it's over 3 years later and Princess Pea (nut) is still here. She has the will to live like no other animal I have ever met. Several hypoglycemic episodes, an ear crop, and several dentals later, she now weighs 1 pound 7 ounces, and has grown lots of hair though she is still not completely covered. She is not like a dog in any sense of the word, she spends the majority of her time laying in a fleece bag on top of a heating pad and only coming out to use her puppy pad, eat, and get attention when she demands it or I force it on her.

I can honestly say she's happy, though I doubt she will ever be normal. All the vets who have given their time and expertise to treat her all say the same thing; Peanut is what happens when you attempt to breed dogs down smaller and smaller with no regard for health. Basically, she is a genetic screw up. How she even lived through birth and the first few months no can even begin to fathom.

No one can guess how long she will live, or how long her health will continue to last. We will just love her for the time we have her, and continue to use her as an example of why "teacups" really aren't a good idea.