She is a smaller mixed breed, with a high pitched, amazingly loud bark, that is surely causing us some level of hearing loss! We were told she lived most of her early life with an elderly Portuguese woman.
This woman eventually had to be moved from her home here in the southern region of Portugal, up to Lisbon in order to live with family who could care for her. She was given to a family member, a nephew of the woman, who also happened to be homeless.
Thus, Fofinha entered the next chapter of her life, living on the streets of Lagoa. Living in the same town, she saw the situation unfold and offered to help the man care for Fofinha; bringing him dog food on a regular basis and checking on Fofinhas health as she had developed bald patches over a few places of her body. The woman soon decided to take Fofinha to a veterinarian to see what was causing the hair loss.
Fofinha was diagnosed with Leishmaniosis, a disease spread by infected mosquitos. This is a very serious and eventually lethal disease for dogs. Left untreated they will suffer and die fairly quick, but if treated with an inexpensive drug, they have the potential to live a longer life; on average 5 to 7 years. We agreed to have her and yes, it could only be for a few days, for two reasons; our landlady gave us permission to have only one dog, and our home was a small apartment. Why oh why did Fofinha and Aivi have to hit it off immediately?!
They were besties from the beginning. You know how it is in your own life, right? Some people just click. Same with dogs. And now? Well, little miss Fofinha has been with us for 3 years. Thankfully our landlady loved dogs too, so after hearing Fofinhas story, she allowed us just one more…. I know every bird in the mountains, and the insects in the fields are mine.
