My roommate's decrepit old Pug is missing

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Warning: incredibly sad.

I am roommates with an older man- strictly platonic, he helps me, I help him, we get along very well for being so different, blah blah blah.

He has (had, I guess :frowning: ) four pug dogs. I had never really interacted with pugs before this, but in the almost two years we’ve been living together, I’ve really bonded with these things. One of them has even adopted me and sits with me and follows me around now, instead of him.

The oldest pug would be 15 next month and was so incredibly old in dog time. She was mostly grey- used to be black- toothless, deaf, hard of seeing, arthritic, had congestive heart failure, had started to really be confused a lot lately. But she still had a strong bark and appetite.

The other night, she went out to go potty, and she never came back. We started looking for her right away, until the wee hours of the morning, with our flashlights and in the car. We’ve, of course, searched the shelters and put up notices and everything that we could do… but she is just gone. He thinks she went down the driveway and somebody somewhere has her. I think he is in denial- her little old legs were very stiff and arthritic, and our driveway is incredibly steep and long and gravelly, and I seriously doubt she would have made it all the way down before we went out looking. We live on a big piece of land out in the country, and there’s a creek, and embankments, and lots of machinery and weeds and buildings and tons of places where she could have fallen into and, either hurt or confused or both, not been able to get out of. Naturally, we have looked everywhere we could around here. I can’t stand to think that she fell in somewhere and couldn’t get out and suffered for who knows how long. I just can’t stand to think that. I’d like to think that she knew that it was her time and she willingly walked off somewhere to die quickly and peacefully, but she ate a full meal just before she went out, and I don’t think she’d do that.

This was his main dog. She went everywhere with him, on jobs, in car, on the tractor, even in the shower. They were tight. And it is breaking his heart, and on a lesser scale, mine. Every night we sit down to eat dinner and he starts sobbing, and I do, too. He leaves the porch lights on all night, even though obviously at this point (she went missing on Tuesday night), I highly doubt she’s going to come strolling up. I wish that at least we could find her, even if she’s dead, so that he can have the closure and knowledge. This not knowing just sucks, so much.

Anyway, if you’ve read this, thank you. Although it wasn’t my dog, I am still incredibly saddened by the events of this week. And tomorrow I will be out there again, searching searching.

2

Look under things. When my English setter was getting senile, he’s walk himself into unfamiliar places and just get stuck, not knowing how to get out. Look under the house, under the deck, under the shed.

Good luck, it’s very sad to lose a pet to death, but uncertainty is so much worse.

StG

3

Yeah, lately I had been seeing her get confused and lost in a corner. A corner.

Thank you.

4

Exactly. Pat used to get lost in corners. Once I got home from work and found he’d walked into the space between the wall and the refrigerator and couldn’t figure out how to back out. Poor Pugsley could be somewhere scared and not knowing how to get out. She could still be alive. Or possibly she crawled under something to die. It happens.

StG

5

I’m sure you’ve thought of this already, but would the other pugs be of any help in the search? What do they do if you ask them to find her by name, in an enthusiastic tone of voice? I know they’re not bloodhounds - pugs noses are kind of crap, actually - but they still sniff better than people.

Hope you find her!

6

What a heartbreaking story. I have heard of tracking dogs being used for this purpose. Maybe you can enlist help from a local obedience club? There might be someone in your area who’d welcome the chance to help out and gain experience for their dog.
Best of luck to you.

7

Ha, yeah, they are sweet as can be, but they are clueless in this regard. They don’t even seem to notice that she’s gone. Or maybe they are secretly happy that they get more food and lovins. When I say her name to them, they just do that very pug-like headcock thing and wag their squiggly little tails.

8

Thanks- I will suggest this to my roommate.

9

Yeah…that’s what I was afraid of. Pugs are about as intelligent as a loaf of bread. Bless their snorky little hearts. <3

10

I was helping my mom move her stuff out of a vacation house she had. She wrangled the sale to coincide with a show of her favorite oldies music group. So, I’m at the house, with her 140 year old deaf, blind dog. She’s off at the show. Multiple warnings about the door that sometimes blows open, and the dog that paces around at all hours…

Dog gets out in the middle of the night (don’t ask!) and wanders down the street. I had partaken in a few beers after loading an entire house of furniture into a truck (by myself) and woke up to find the door open and the dog GONE!

Oh. Fuck.

I go trucking down the street at 3:30am and with the luck of Ringo Starr, find that goddamn dog passed out under a streetlight!

I didn’t tell my mom. One of my darkest secrets. I don’t think she visits the Dope. Nobody tell her, okay?

Dog is gone, now, by the way. Only lived to be 1hundredfucking60!

11

A friend of mine thought her old man cat had gotten out, was worried sick he was outside dying somewhere because he really was an old and sick kitty. A week later, she found him peacefully curled up on a rug in the garage, stiff and dead as a post. She had slept in there one night when their floors were being re-done and that kitty had likely followed her in somehow and died there. She was heartbroken, but indeed relieved to know he had passed in a safe place and not outside (he was an indoor-only housecat).

Hoping you guys find the little old puglet, and in a way it’s clear if she died that she was in a “safe” spot and not distressed. If she was used to the yard out there and spent time outside, maybe she had a favorite spot you just haven’t found yet. Anyway, hoping for a resolution, it really is the worst not to know.

12

My nineteen year old disappeared like that too.:frowning:

13

Oh, I do hope you find her. I can’t imagine how distraught you and your roomate must be.

14

No, that’s quite plausible. The big meal might have stressed her heart a little and she was overwhelmed with a need to sleep. She found a peaceful spot and never woke up. The urge to find a secluded, quiet spot is instinctual with small animals. It was probably her time and she answered the call.

Sleep well, little puggie.

15

I really hope this is so.

16

I’m sorry to be blunt,but are there Coyotes or hawks in the area? People lose small dogs and cats to them a lot.
I hope she found a comfy spot and just never woke up.

17

A friend of mine lost her old dog like this in the middle of the winter. In the spring, they found that she had crawled behind the log pile. She probably went there to die.

So my advice is to be sure and search close to home. I highly doubt someone took her.

18

No coyotes here, not sure about hawks but probably.

I spent a great deal of time today looking- almost got heat stroke, but I went over the place again. This time I tried to smell everywhere, as well as look, because, well, you know. As time goes on without her being found, I am starting to become convinced that she went to the bank. The bank is a steep drop-off embankment that we always throw our unwanted food over, like when we clean out the refrigerator- you can’t really see down there in the summer because it’s all weedy and bushy, but it’s a sudden drop. It’s fairly far from the house, and it seems odd that she would have made it all the way over there in the dark, but I really can’t think of any other scenario.