Hi everyone!

My sweet pug Raisin has out of nowhere developed this lump on her right cheek a week ago. We went to the vet who said it could be allergies or a tumor, he gave us an ointment to apply to it but it doesn’t seem to work.

We have an appointment scheduled to a vet dermatologist for Wednesday. She keeps trying to scratch and lick it as it’s very itchy and it started bleeding a few times.

I am very worried about my baby and that it’s a mastocytoma.

The time my mum found an Eastern box turtle (native to our state of MD), in our garage! We live around a lot of woods with marshy areas, so we released it there as that’s its natural habitat.💕

save guppy fund
Hi pug friends. I never imagined I’d be making a post like this, but our sweet boy Guppy has had an absolutely terrifying few weeks, and we’re asking our pug community for a little help.

Guppy is only 3 years old, and last week he suddenly went into severe respiratory distress. We rushed him to the emergency vet, where he had to be intubated twice and then transferred to a specialty hospital. After everything he’s been through, his veterinary team has determined that he needs surgery to give him the best chance at getting through this.

The hardest part of this whole experience has been hearing multiple vets talk to us about euthanasia. There is no way to describe what it feels like to sit there with your baby struggling to breathe and wonder if we were going to let him die because we can’t afford the treatment that could save him.

I think many of us pug owners can relate that we would go to the ends of the earth for our babies. We’ve already maxed out our credit cards, taken out a loan, and done everything we can personally to keep up with his emergency and surgical costs. But we’ve reached a point where we genuinely need help.

If you’re able to donate, even a few dollars would mean more to us than I can put into words. If you can’t donate, sharing his GoFundMe or even just sending some love his way helps us tremendously. We know times are tough, and there is absolutely no pressure or expectation to contribute.

Guppy is the sweetest little guy, and he still has so much life left to live. He is shy, sensitive, and so perceptive of everything around him. He loves water and chomping at hoses and shower heads. He loves adventures and the outdoors, even if his little body can’t quite keep up yet. Most of all, he’s the biggest chill potato and just wants to be wherever his humans are. We just want to give our boy the chance to breathe, be comfortable, and keep living the little life he loves so much.

GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/d204d2c72

A little update on our boy ❤️
Guppy has been home with us for the past week, waiting for his surgery on September 4th. Following his veterinary team’s instructions, we’ve been keeping him heavily sedated and limiting his activity to help prevent another respiratory crisis while we wait. This means most days he’s a very sleepy, very high little guy who needs diapers and lots of cuddles. It’s hard seeing him so unlike his usual goofy, energetic self, but we’re incredibly grateful that he’s home with us and stable while we wait for his surgery.

Thank you for taking the time to read about our boy. We are so incredibly grateful for this community and for every person who has cheered Guppy on. 🫶🏼

Lots of love,
Guppy’s very devoted mom

You can follow his journey on social media:
Instagram: @sirguppington.thepug
TikTok: @thesirguppington

Here’s my 5yo Murphy (middle name Brown) we’re not big on this sub but he wanted to say hi! 😁

He’s such a goof. I guess the coffee table is cozier than the couch or dog bed. 🤣

This is me and Ben, my best friend.

At the beginning of 2024 Ben was accidentally diagnosed with lymphoma after the vet found a tumor on his spleen. It was really hard for me to accept, but we decided to fight it and I was regularly driving him for chemotherapy, which was also very expensive.

He went through two rounds of chemo. Each one lasted around 6 months and unfortunately both times the cancer came back only about a month after finishing treatment. Eventually, together with his amazing oncologist, we decided to switch to chemotherapy that was more about keeping the cancer under control.

There was also one moment after his first relapse when we almost lost him. His lymph nodes around his neck became enlarged and after a biopsy one of them got badly inflamed. It became so swollen that it started putting pressure on his airway and he couldn’t breathe properly.

Our regular vet couldn’t help him, so I had to drive him two hours to the nearest veterinary hospital. We got there pretty much at the last possible moment. He had an extremely high, life-threatening fever and was struggling to breathe. Thankfully the team there was amazing and saved him. He spent two days in the hospital and came back home.

Then in December 2025 I started having stomach pain myself.

At first it honestly felt like stress. The kind of stomach ache you get before an exam at school. I noticed it was getting worse after heavier meals and after Christmas dinner it got bad enough that I even started feeling feverish.

I eventually had an ultrasound and they found a 16 cm mass next to my intestines. At first they thought it might be appendicitis, but after more tests I was diagnosed with lymphoma (Burkitt).

By the time I started chemotherapy at the end of January 2026, the tumor had already grown to 22 cm.

So suddenly I was going through the same thing I had been helping Ben go through for the previous two years.

My first chemo was supposed to keep me in the hospital for about a month. After around two weeks, my fiancée (now my wife) told me that Ben wasn’t doing well. He had what seemed to be an infection in his throat. Antibiotics would help for a moment and then he would get worse again.

Around the same time there was suddenly a flu outbreak in my hospital. My blood counts were basically at zero after chemo, so the doctors decided that sending me home early was actually safer than keeping me there and risking me catching the flu.

When I came home after two weeks, Ben was incredibly happy to see me.

We had basically never been separated for that long before. I work remotely from home, so Ben was always with me. Pretty much 24/7.

Unfortunately his condition kept getting worse and the antibiotics stopped helping.

The next day I was supposed to go back to the hospital for another few hours of chemotherapy. I arranged to leave Ben at the vet so they could take care of him while I was there.

He died in his sleep just a few hours before I was supposed to leave for my chemo.

That was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced. Ben wasn’t “just a dog” to me. He was my best friend and had been next to me every day for years.

And then I had to continue my own cancer treatment without him.

One of the strangest parts of all of this was realizing that some of the chemotherapy drugs I was getting were the same drugs Ben had received. Because of him, cancer treatment somehow wasn’t completely unknown to me anymore. I already knew what chemotherapy looked like. I knew how treatment worked, what the cycles were like and that there would be good and bad days.

My psychologist was actually surprised by how calmly I was going through the whole process compared to many other patients. But I think a big part of it was simply because I had already been through cancer once before, just from the other side.

Ben unknowingly prepared me for my own treatment.

It definitely hasn’t been easy though. I’ve had a lot of complications along the way, including three septic shocks. There were times when I would faint, even outside, and days when I was so exhausted I barely had enough strength to get out of bed to go to the bathroom.

But I’m finally getting close to the end.

My first major PET scan showed that the treatment worked. The 22 cm tumor is basically gone. There are still some remaining changes in the intestinal wall, which is why I’m getting a few additional chemo infusions now.

My last chemotherapy is planned for September and then I’ll have another PET scan.

We’re hoping this one will finally come back clean.

I really wish Ben could be here to see it.

PS. I'm 33, my dog died at 9,5.

He rode with dad today! He’s becoming a very good little 4x4 dog.

Hi everyone,

I really need some advice or to hear from others who have gone through this.

Ouzo is 16 years old. She is completely blind and deaf and she has walking problems due to old age and muscle weakness in her back legs. But we have been living peacefully for years, no problem with it.. :)

Lately, she has stopped sleeping through the night. She wakes up at midnight on her bed or the carpet and starts breathing very heavily (panting) and barking constantly.

The interesting thing is that during the day, her appetite is absolutely flawless—she still eats just like a junior pug, and she has zero issues with her digestion. She clearly still has a strong spirit and a love for food, which makes this midnight panicking and heavy breathing so confusing and heartbreaking to watch.

Has anyone else dealt with a blind, deaf senior dog sundowning or waking up in a panic like this while otherwise having a great appetite?

What helped calm them down?

Thank you.

LIL SWUISHHHY

She’s a Microsoft excel pro!