Our Newest Family Member

We call her Funny Face and that’s because we couldn’t ever understand what we were being told when we asked her name.  This is the story of how we acquired Funny Face.

A little over a year ago we purchased our property in Hopkins Village, Belize.  Next door to our property lived a family with 4 children ranging in age from 2 – 11 and it was with this family that Funny Face mainly resided.  We assumed she belonged to them.  While we were renovating our little home Funny Face became less and less timid with us.  By her behavior it was clear to us that she had been abused and it may have been this abuse that led to her slightly deformed face.  Her tongue always hangs out the left side of her mouth, hence her name.  We know that some will see this name as insulting or politically incorrect but we gave it to her as an endearing name.  Every time we asked the children next door her name we were unable to understand the response due to the accent of the children (Creole and Spanish) along with their quiet voices.  So Funny Face it became.  Over time Funny Face became more and more trusting of us and after about 6 months she began spending most of her time with us.

Fast forward several months – the family next door moves and leaves Funny Face behind; I never could get a reason why when the kids told me they weren’t taking her.  So now her reality is that she has been left behind and there are a couple of soft hearted men in my life who decided that Funny Face was to become the our office property (which is right beside my home).

Funny Face is now an accepted member of our family.  Buster, our dog, loves playing with her and she no longer runs from him, instead she engages him in puppy play, and we love watching the two of them play together.

Now the story gets serious.  We noticed that the female end of Funny Face became swollen, she was dripping blood, and having never owned a female dog before, we assumed she was in heat.  Not thinking too much about it we went about our business.  It was odd though that she wasn’t “attracting” any male suitors.  They would go be on the road and not show any interest in Funny Face.  At this point we decided to get the Hopkins Belize Humane Society (HBHS) involved.   We contacted them and after explaining the symptoms it was decided they would come and get her for a checkup.  During the checkup it was determined that she had contracted TVT, which is a venereal disease for dogs, also known as transmissible venereal tumour, usually seen in non-neutered dogs.  This was odd because Funny Face was neutered before we moved here, according to Kelli, the HBHS volunteer.

The local chapter of the Humane Society was hosting a visiting veterinarian student from the U.K. who just so happened to be studying TVT so Funny Face has become part of the study.  The staff at the HBHS came by once a week for 6 weeks to pick her up and take her to the clinic for a chemotherapy treatment.  Even after the first treatment there was a noticeable improvement in her female parts and over the next few weeks she became “younger”, began to play more, put on weight and just overall feel better.  Thanks to the team at Hopkins Belize Humane Society we are now able to enjoy our second dog for years to come.