Pug-fusion!
I had a bit of a scare this morning. Pugly and I headed off to the garage to load up the Jeep and drive off to daycare and work when the most upsetting weirdness occurred.
At first I thought Pugly was just being his playful self and was going to make me chase him when he wouldn’t get in the car, but soon it was quite evident that Pugly wasn’t being playful at all. There was no wag of the tail, no silly, bounciness in his movements, no mischievous light in his eyes.
Pugly looked at me as if he didn’t know who I was. He looked around the garage as if he had never seen it before. He peered into the house as if he had never been there. He wouldn’t come near me. Occasionally he would look at the open car door as if for a brief moment he would recall that there was something about it that he was supposed to remember but for the most part, he just hid under the Jeep or a few arms’ lengths away.
I tried luring him to me with sweet talk and a meaty treat, but he would only take a treat that had been put on the floor and abandoned. He would not come near me. It was making me tear up.
Finally I lured him back into the house using a trail of treats and trapped him in a smaller room where I was able to pick him up. He was terrified and trembling. His tail was uncurled, his eyes wide with fear and teary. I hugged him and whispered over and over that everything was o.k. I gave him more treats.
This whole event took 30 minutes. Eventually I did take him to daycare. I pet him with one hand the whole way and kept reassuring him, but I was never quite sure if he was o.k., if my Pugly was back, if he knew who I was or how much I love him. The whole thing is very upsetting.
It really wasn’t until we got to doggy daycare that he started to recognize his surroundings and started acting like himself. He even gave me a kiss good-bye before running off to play with his friends. The manager there tried to assure me that probably he just got spooked in the garage and that’s why he was acting weird. I hope so. It was so strange. Like to broke my heart.
Tags: Pug, the puppy, temporary amnesia
