Blu-berry

Two pounds of personality

My friend Tom once looked at Blu-berry and said: "If your job was to create the cutest creature imaginable, you'd probably end up making something that looks exactly like Blu."

I've never forgotten that. Because it was true.

Blu hardly looked like a Chihuahua at all. She looked like a tiny bird. She had oversized ears, enormous eyes that somehow managed to look both innocent and slightly judgmental at the same time, and a little pink tongue that often refused to stay inside her mouth. Everything about her was impossibly delicate. When people met her for the first time, they almost always reacted the same way.

"Oh... my goodness."

Then they'd scoop her up, stare into those enormous eyes, and completely fall apart. Blu had that effect on people.

Of course, that first impression lasted about thirty seconds. Because then she'd open her mouth... and you'd realize this adorable little bird had enough opinions to run an entire homeowners' association. We joked that she was always one minor inconvenience away from asking to speak to the manager.

Blu was gloriously opinionated.

Dinner was three minutes late? Completely unacceptable.
Someone else received a treat first? A formal complaint would be filed immediately.
Another dog dared to occupy her preferred lap? Clearly, management needed to get involved.

The funny part was that she weighed barely two pounds. Her personality weighed somewhere around seventy-five.

Her official name was Blu-berry.
But somewhere along the way, she became...

Poopooberry.

Don't ask me how. To this day, that's often the name that comes to mind before Blu-berry. She wore it proudly.

Blu also possessed what I can only describe as Oscar-worthy acting skills. Her greatest performance? The fake cough. 

She had chronic trachea and respiratory issues and every cough would send us immediately into protective mode because it could trigger an episode. I was always terrified by those episodes.  Blu noticed. She'd cough, and somehow a treat would appear. Or she'd cough, and someone would scoop her into their arms. And somewhere inside that enormous brain of hers, a tiny light bulb switched on.

And thus began Blu's fake-cough operation.

She'd cough, if she simply felt the universe had forgotten, for even a moment, that she was the centre of it. She had us completely trained.It was brilliant.

Eventually, we realized we had been thoroughly manipulated by two pounds of Chihuahua. Looking back, I have to admire the strategy. She took one of the things that frightened me the most and somehow figured out how to turn it into room service.

Poopooberry: 1.
Humans: 0.

As much as Blu loved food, and trust me, she LOVED food,  there was something she loved almost as much: Her people. And her little family. Especially if that family happened to be gathered at one magical place.

Casa Wawa.

How A Little Bird Learned To Fly

Casa Wawa was what we affectionately called my dear friend Paulina's house, where she lived with her two Chihuahuas, Bijou and Beau-Beau.

To Blu, Casa Wawa was paradise.

Blu's medical needs were complicated, and I couldn't leave her with just anyone.She went there for sleepovers whenever I needed a trusted backup for her care, but honestly, I sometimes wondered whether she thought my house was the backup and Casa Wawa was her primary residence.

Blu adored Auntie Paulina.

And Bijou was her bestie. Those two were peas in a very tiny, slightly judgmental pod.  Bijou had a carrying bag that was apparently exclusive real estate. Other dogs need not apply. But Blu was always allowed. Of course she was.

Then there was Beau-Beau, whom we jokingly considered Bijou's husband. Except Beau-Beau adored Blu too, which naturally made Blu and Bijou sister wives. It was complicated.They made it work.

QT was another little foster dog who stayed at Casa Wawa. She was delightfully aloof, happily twirling around chasing her own tail, permanently starring in a movie nobody else could see. Blu and Bijou occasionally found this unacceptable. Every once in a while, the tiny sister wives would join forces and go a little Mean Girls on poor QT. Nothing serious. Just enough Chihuahua politics to make it clear that the lunch table was currently full.
QT carried on being the main character in her own universe. Probably the healthiest response.

Casa Wawa became much more than a back up place for Blu to safely stay. It became one of her happiest places.

Food.
Friends.
Auntie Paulina.
Her bestie.
Her honorary husband.
Occasional neighborhood disputes.
What more could Poopooberry possibly require?

The funny thing is, this loud, social, demanding little creature hadn't always been that way. Not even close.

Blu arrived at my house with Pepito. 

Pepito had been found abandoned in an apartment, barely alive, and eventually sold online to a woman living in a severe hoarding situation who already had Blu. That's how the two of them ended up together. And somehow, after everything, they got out together too. 

Before I even opened the filthy crate they came in that first night, I'd already given myself a stern lecture.

"You are NOT keeping this one."

I would get her healthy, foster her for however long she needed, and eventually find her a wonderful home. Very sensible. Very responsible. A solid plan.

Then I opened the crate.
Oh boy.

Blu weighed barely two pounds. She had lost much of her hair, leaving funny little strands and patches here and there. Her itchy skin was uncomfortable. She was sick, frightened, and so fragile that several veterinarians later told me she likely wouldn't have survived much longer where she was.

That first night, after a bath, some food, and a pair of ridiculously oversized pajamas, all I wanted to do was hold her. Blu wanted absolutely nothing to do with that plan. She chose a little bed by herself and curled up alone. It broke my heart, but I let her. Apparently, if this relationship was going anywhere, it would proceed on her schedule. That should have been my first clue.

About a week later, Blu came over at bedtime and asked to be picked up. I lifted her into bed. She curled up beside me. And that was that. From then on, she slept with me every night.

Her second declaration came a couple of months later. Until then, Blu had barely made a sound. I'd actually started wondering whether she could bark at all. Then one day she walked up to me, put her little front paws against my legs and...

BARK.

I froze. She wanted to be picked up, so naturally I picked her up immediately. But I secretly wanted to put her back down just so she'd do it again. That tiny bark was one of the sweetest sounds I'd ever heard. I wanted to hear it over and over. For eternity, if possible.

Little did I know. Once Blu discovered she had a voice, she became very committed to using it. The frightened little creature who had arrived without much hair, strength, or expectation from life was disappearing.

She was still tiny. Still physically fragile. Still my little bird. But now …

She had friends.
Opinions.
Favorite foods and favorite laps.
Sleepovers.
Complaints to file.
A voice.

Somehow, the tiny, fragile, sickly little bird who arrived at my house almost dead inside had become a tiny, fragile, social, happy, louder-than-life little bird.

The Littlest Big Deal

Of course, there was still one small problem with my original plan. I was supposedly going to find Blu a home. Remember that?

By this point, the idea had become increasingly ridiculous. Blu had one medical issue after another, and the longer she stayed, the more complicated her care became. We developed routines. I learned her signals. I knew what was normal for her and what meant we needed help. Technically, I could tell myself her medical needs were the reason she stayed. And they were. But honestly... Who was I kidding? Within the first week or two, I think we both knew she wasn't going anywhere. Apparently, I did need another resident dog. More importantly, Blu had apparently decided she needed a resident me. Case closed.

Her tiny body, however, remained incredibly fragile. One of our biggest concerns was her collapsing trachea. Sometimes her breathing episodes became serious enough that we'd make a trip to the emergency hospital. Eventually, Blu became something of a celebrity there too. We'd walk through the doors and it was basically:

Blu has arrived.
People knew her.
Staff would come running to triage her, get her breathing settled, and make sure their tiny VIP was okay.

Outside the emergency hospital, she had another public role. Blu became one of the little faces of our rescue. She came with me to fundraising and adoption events as an ambassador, where people who had followed her online would sometimes show up specifically hoping to meet her. Blu had her own Instagram page. She had fans. She had admirers.

She was, quite frankly, a pretty big deal.

And there was something particularly wonderful about watching people meet her for the first time. They'd see the tiny body. The funny little wisps of hair. Those enormous eyes. The ears. The tongue. Then the personality would arrive. And that was it. Another person had fallen under Blu's spell.

For a little dog who had once barely made a sound, she had become remarkably good at making sure the world knew she was there.

Blu never became less fragile. Her body always needed protecting. There was always something I was watching, treating, worrying about, or trying to stay one step ahead of. 

But Blu herself? She was busy living.

She had food to eat.
Friends to visit.
People to charm.
Aunties to adore.
A best friend.
A sister-wife situation that remained nobody's business but theirs.
A social calendar.
An Instagram following.
And, whenever necessary, a complaint to file with management.
The tiny little bird I had once worried might not survive had somehow built herself an enormous life.

And she intended to enjoy every bit of it.

An Ordinary Day Until It Wasnt

It was one of those ordinary, peaceful days that you don't realize you'll remember forever. Paulina and the Wawas came over for a visit the day before one of the most horrific days of my life.

There was nothing unusual about the day. Blu was Blu.

She ate.
She socialized.
She enjoyed having her little gang around.
At one point, she curled up on Paulina's lap, and Beau-Beau nestled himself around her so completely that he almost seemed to be cocooning her. Paulina and I looked at them and smiled. "Look at him protecting her." It was sweet. That was all we thought it was. Afterward, Paulina and I would return to that moment again and again.

Did Beau-Beau sense something we couldn't?
Did he somehow know?
Maybe he was simply loving Blu. We'll never know.

The next morning was November 30th. I woke up already thinking about Zero. Exactly one year earlier, on November 30th, I had lost him. So that morning already carried its own sadness.

Losing Blu on the same date was certainly not on the bingo card.

She was coughing more than usual that morning, but with Blu, coughing wasn't unusual. We'd been through episodes before. Sometimes medication settled things down. Sometimes we needed a little extra help from the vet. This felt like another one of those days. I even gave her one of her regular medicated baths before we left. That's how ordinary the morning felt. 

During the drive, though, her coughing worsened. By the time we reached the clinic, her breathing had become more labored, and what had felt like another familiar Blu cough was beginning to feel different. I held her against my chest and paced while we waited to be seen. I was too nervous to sit. She was struggling to breathe.

We were rushed straight to the back as I kept holding her close to my heart.

X-rays showed that something was very different this time. Within minutes, what had begun as another familiar Blu cough became something none of us had expected.

Blu stopped breathing.

The veterinarian and her team rushed to help her, and for a little while, they were able to get her breathing again with assistance. But her tiny body could no longer do it on its own.

Everything changed frighteningly fast. What I had thought would be another trip to the vet had somehow, impossibly, become our agonizing goodbye.

And throughout it all, whenever I could hold her, I did.
Right against my chest.
Right where she had spent so much of her life.

There are many things about that day I will probably question forever. Things I wish I understood. Things I wish I had known. But there is one thing I know with absolute certainty.

Blu was never alone.

The tiny little bird who had once arrived at my house frightened, sick, nearly hairless, and unable even to trust my arms, left this world in those arms.

But November 30th is not where I want to leave Blu.
Because when I think about her, that isn't where she lives.

She lives at Casa Wawa.
She lives at rescue events, charming complete strangers.
She lives in that first tiny bark that made me want to put her back down just so I could hear it again.
She lives in ridiculously oversized pajamas.
She lives in every strongly worded complaint about late dinners and unfair treat distribution.
And, of course...
she lives in the fake cough.

"Cough."
Pick me up.
"Cough."
I would like some of that food.
"Cough, cough."
Excuse me, but I believe someone else has been receiving entirely too much attention.

That is the Blu I want to remember.
The tiny, fragile little bird who came to me almost dead inside and somehow became one of the loudest, funniest, happiest little souls I have ever known.

She never became less fragile. She simply became more Blu.

Gloriously opinionated.
Ridiculously adorable.
Deeply loved.
And forever and ever...
my Poopooberry.