This is the fourth time I've tried writing this post. So much I want to say; yet in the long run some of it doesn't matter. I guess all I can do is write it out, and see where it takes me.
Two months after my son, Josh, and I moved in to our house in 2000, we decided it was time to get a puppy. My parents' dog was getting older, so our intent was to have another outdoor dog to watch over the property. We knew we wanted a dog that was at least part Australian Shepard, since my parents had such good luck with the breed in the past.
We saw an ad for free puppies in the paper that July; a mix of Australian Shepard and Blue Healer, and decided to check them out. We got to the location in a remote part of Skamania County, where the owners rounded up all the puppies for us to see. It wasn't too hard, most of them were sleeping in the afternoon sun; except one puppy. That puppy looked nothing like the others, who definitely had Blue Healer in them. This one puppy though was totally different, and looked nothing like a Blue Healer. Instead, this puppy was a little 10 pound bundle of peanut butter colored fur and a ball of energy. While the other puppies dozed, this little fur ball ran back and forth constantly, making sure she had our attention. Even at that young age, she had a definite smile as well. Needless to say, she captured our hearts instantly; and we took her home with us.
On the way home Josh and I were trying to come up with a name for our new puppy. We thought and thought, then I said something like, "she looks like a fluffy ball of peanut butter, we could call her Fluffernuffer". Josh thought I was crazy, yet at the same time kind of liked the name, so it was decided, our dog would have this unique name. When my mom heard the puppy's new name, she said if we were going to stick her with that moniker, we should make it fancy and replace the "f"'s with "ph". We thought that would be cool, and agreed we would; however "Phluphphernuphpher" seemed a bit too over the top. So instead, we changed the first "f" in the name to "ph", and left the rest of the "f"'s alone. Thus our new puppy's name was now "Phluffernuffer".
That wasn't all Phluffer ate however. Before she was a year old she'd chewed through the phone line into our house, ate the heads and tails off her dinosaur toys and "rescued" us from the outside dryer vent.
Whenever we'd use the dryer, Phluffer would stand in front of the dryer vent and bark at it. One day though she stopped barking. Josh went to see if she was still there, and okay; what he found was Phluffer eating the last bit of the dryer vent; and looking quite happy about it.
The dryer vent incident led to the story of the "sock elves". Instead of rescuing us from the evil dryer vent, Phluffer had actually made a deal with the sock elves; those little creatures that are the reason socks come up missing from the dryer. By removing the vent, Phluffer made it easier for these tiny little beings to get the socks from the dryer. In return, Phluffer would receive 15% of all the socks the sock elves got from the dryer. What would a dog need with all those socks you ask? Well, it was all part of her scheme to become Queen of the World. You see, though she acted like a little princess, Phluffer felt that even that status was beneath her, and strived to become Queen of the World, gaining her proper place in the universe. The socks were to be used to control the weather and other things we'll get to later.
In the meantime, the running line about our Phluffer puppy was, "what's that; can I eat it?", because she literally would eat anything she could get her teeth into. That's a trait that never changed in her over the years. It wasn't that she meant to be destructive, she just wanted to eat everything she saw.
Not that Phluffer noticed everything around her; she didn't. For instance, cars would go by our driveway, or by the vet's office when we took her there; she could have cared less. An airplane flying through the skies though; she'd chase after that every time! And guess what? Her vet's office is right next to where Evergreen Airport used to be in Vancouver. Thank goodness for a collar and leash, otherwise I think our dog would have commandeered one of those planes and taken it on a joy ride! Knowing this, we did try to have Phluffer learn proper doggy etiquette.
When she was a bit older, but still a puppy, Phluffer began formal schooling. She was enrolled with several other pets in an obedience course. Sadly, while the other dogs were all learning how to heel, sit, stay, etc., our Phluffer found her calling in being the class clown. Not that she didn't learn these valuable lessons; she did. It was the getting her to do them when *we* wanted her to and not when *she* felt like it that was the problem. The person teaching the course had been in the business for 25 years before meeting our Phluffer. He suggested all kinds of things to try to get her to do what we asked, to no avail. His conclusion was, (as he put it nicely), she's the happiest dog he'd ever seen; and even if we worked with her 24/7, she probably still wouldn't do things when we wanted her to. Coincidently, after that class, we never saw the instructor ever again and he stopped training dogs. We'd like to think it really was a coincidence and not because of our dog.
No matter how old Phluffer got, she never lost that, "the world revolves around me", attitude. To her, everyone and everything was put on this earth for her entertainment, and she was going to take full advantage of it. Again, this was never done in a mean way; just the opposite in fact. Phluffer rarely didn't have a smile on her face, or her tongue hanging out.
There have only been two times that the dog has been upset over something besides bad weather. Once was a time when Josh was going somewhere with a friend. Phluffer saw "her boy" get into a car she didn't know, and she actually growled. I told her it was okay, her boy was fine; didn't matter, she did a low growl until the car was gone. She then went into her doghouse and refused to come out for any reason, until her boy came home; then she was out of her doghouse in a flash to meet her boy and be all happy again.
The second incidence was two or three Christmas' ago. Since Phluffer loved plastic toys and eating things, we had found a squeaky toy that looked like a turkey leg. We thought she'd love it; we were very, very wrong! At first she was excited; until she got a hold of the toy. After that, she dropped it on the ground, kicked it and started howling mournfully. The only thing we can figure is, it looked too close to the real thing, and when she found it wasn't, she was unhappy. To this day we don't know where that toy turkey leg went. We're guessing it's buried somewhere, never to be seen again.
Speaking of never seeing things again, that applies to one of our drain spouts as well. Phluffer had her own big penned off play area. One day we came home and noticed the drain spout on that side of the house was gone. No one could have gotten into where she was; if they had tried, she'd have been out faster than lightning. She was still there however, and nothing else had changed except the missing spout. We still haven't found it; and we're not totally convinced she didn't actually eat it.
I promised I'd get back to Phluffer and the sock elves, so I guess I should do that, before I forget. As explained earlier, the sock elves were indebted to Phluffer for giving them greater access to our socks. Ever the entrepreneur, our dog found an opportunity to help herself as well as the sock elves. Once the sock elves had better access to socks, Phluffer set up a little factory for them. (Sock Elf Industries, LLC), gave them medical and dental benefits, housing and food. In return, besides 15% of the socks, the sock elves helped Phluffer on her quest to be the Queen of the World. This loyalty also allowed the elves a higher ranking when Phluffer took over leadership. This was all quite a secretive operation of course, though Josh and I did catch on to it eventually. Feeling that nothing too terribly bad could happen, (and not wanting to risk our own immunity), we pretended like we didn't know anything about all of it. One day we did happen to see a blue Astro van while we were out and about. The license plate frame said, "Princess? I'm the Queen"; we knew instantly that was our dog's van! It also explained the big hole that had appeared in Phluffer's play area; after all, she had to hide the van somewhere.
The whole thing with the socks however really did have to do with Phluffer claiming her rightful spot as Queen. You see, she was working on changing earth's weather patterns. It was her thought that if she could confuse people this way, they'd be easier to take over. After a few years and hundreds of socks, Phluffer for one day, accomplished her goal. April 19, 2008, it snowed two inches in our area.
Mentioning Phluffer being queen reminds me that she had several other nicknames as well; too many to list here, though I'll highlight a few. Our Phluffernuffer has also been nicknamed Phluffer, Phluffin, Phluffermonkey, Phluffinstuffins, Phlufferbutt, Phlufferkins, Professor Phluffington III, and from my parents, Phluffies, (*I* cringe at that one!), and Phluffienuffies, (another cringe for that one). And then there was "Jan Zyers"; which actually came about for two reasons.
One year, when licensing Phluffer, I sent a check for double the amount, and put in the memo, "Phluffernuffer-2 Years". When we got the license, it was for "Zyers". I called the license place, and the woman said she remembered that, because of Phluffer's name. She went to check on what happened and came back to the phone laughing. Even though I'd printed the information, the woman had read "2 Years" as "Zyers", even with the word "years" spelled correctly! Because the check was for two years, she'd read it as being for two dogs, Phluffernuffer-Zyers. It was definitely funny!
Later, the name Zyers came in handy. I'd started playing Farmville, and didn't have many neighbors. My cousin had set up her dog, Maggie, on Facebook, so she'd have another neighbor. Good idea, though I thought "Phluffernuffer" probably wouldn't fly as easily as "Maggie". That's when I came up with an idea. I used my middle name, "Jan" for the first name, and "Zyers" as the last name. Thus Phluffer became "Jan Zyers" on Facebook, and had her own page and her own little Farmville acreage. Her little character even had hair color close to hers, and short ponytails that looked like little floppy dog ears.
I'm definitely rambling in this post, and not writing events in chronological order; which is appropriate for Phluffer I guess. She was a good candidate for doggy ADHD. They say people and their pets start to look alike; I guess that could be true, my hair was longer until recently. In our case though, it's more like the dog acts like Josh and me! The receptionist at the vet's office had said, give Phluffer ten years, she'll calm down. I said that wasn't calming down, that was getting old! This year, at twelve, Phluffer was still acting the same way!
I'd mentioned that my hair had been long until recently; this is true of Phluffer also, since we got her shaved a couple months ago. Actually, this summer was the second time we'd had Phluffer shaved. The first time was a couple years ago. This year though, when the person was shaving Phluffer, she discovered a large growth on her underside.
I won't go into it here, as I've already posted earlier about this discovery. Since that time, Phluffer was scheduled for surgery on August 14, 2012. The surgery went well, though the vet did say the growth had gone deeper than they thought, and they couldn't get it all.
We brought Phluffer home, took care of her the way we were told, and tried to keep her from hurting her stitches. Leave it to our dog to have a cone, and a t-shirt on, and still manage to get at her stitches! That's our Phluffer! Fortunately, she didn't hurt herself, and she seemed to be healing nicely, and getting back to being her old self. On Friday, August 17th however I thought it looked like Phluffer may have popped one of her stitches.
I called the vet, let them know what I thought, and they said to bring her in that day, instead of her scheduled appointment for Saturday. Josh and I took her in, the vet looked her over and got back to us about what he'd found. Phluffer hadn't popped a stitch, however, the skin around her stitches was dying. The vet explained that it wasn't anything we did or didn't do; it was because the tumor was most likely cancerous. He went on to explain how, if we wanted, he could do surgery again, however, it may not help. Not only would the growth probably come back, Phluffer would have a longer healing process, if it healed at all.
This hit Josh and I hard, because we had really seen an improvement in Phluffer. This is a dog, who in twelve years had not once been sick. She'd never had ear mites, worms, or even fleas. An outdoor dog and not one flea, ever; now this. The biopsy of the growth hadn't come back, but the doctor said he was 99.9% sure it was cancer and it was a rapid kind. We had a choice to make: 1. Do another surgery and hope it was successful, even if only temporary; 2. Do nothing and let things take their course; or 3. Have Phluffer put to sleep. This was not a choice we wanted to make.
We discussed the pros and cons of all options, and in the end came to a conclusion. We took Phluffer home that day, so she could see my parents; explore and wander the property on a leash, roll in the grass, and do whatever she wanted to...One last time.
Knowing that the odds were slim in her favor, and not wanting her to suffer more down the line, we chose to have her put to sleep. This isn't a situation we took lightly; it was really hard to decide what to do. We asked questions of the vet looking for a right answer. Even then, none of them felt right, so we had to do what would be best for the dog, with the least amount of suffering.
So, we took her home, did all those things one last time, and took more pics of our Phluffer puppy before returning to the vet's office that afternoon.
After returning, we were told what they would do, and what would happen. Part of me didn't want to be in the room when it was done; though Josh wanted to be there. I figured if my son could go through that, then I should too; and it just didn't feel right leaving our puppy, (at twelve she was still my puppy), girl alone in her final moments. It's something I hope I don't have to do again. She went peacefully, but it was just so hard to have that happen and know it was because of a decision I'd made.
I spent a large part of the rest of the weekend crying off and on, and missing Phluffer very much; as did Josh, and my parents.
The hurt and missing are still there, and will be for awhile, I know. We did find out Monday afternoon however, that we really did make the right choice. The biopsy of the growth came back, and it was cancerous. Not only that, it was spreading rapidly and had already made it into her lymph nodes; there really was no hope for Phluffer because of that.
As I said in the beginning of this post, this is the fourth time I've tried to write this. It's still not exactly how I want it to be; too much skipping around here and there, etc. Then again, that's me, and that's how our Phluffer was too, so maybe it's okay for this post to be that way. So many memories, and I just know I'll remember a million more once this is posted. For now though, I'll finally end this post, and leave everyone with the very last pic of Phluffernuffer ever taken. After twelve years of trying, including several attempts the day this pic was taken, Josh finally got the shot of Phluffer he'd always wanted. He calls it her happy, derpy face. Somehow I think Phluffer knows that's a compliment.
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