Anna Marie Tendler mourns the passing of her beloved dog Petunia
When John Mulaney left his wife, Anna Marie Tendler, and took up with his current girlfriend, almost everyone was on Tendler’s side. Even moreso when we learned about the girlfriend’s pregnancy. Anna Marie only issued one statement as she was going through the divorce process, but we also knew that she sought in-patient treatment when her husband left her. Then, last year, Anna Marie finally spoke – she gave a heartbreaking interview about how her life shifted when Mulaney relapsed and left her and got another woman pregnant. She spoke about how she’s now focused on herself and her art and her dog. People really want the best for her. Well, Anna Marie has written an essay in Elle about the death of her dog Petunia. Petunia was a ten-year-old French bulldog and Anna Marie had full custody of the dog in the divorce. Petunia was, arguably, the love of Anna Marie’s life. Petunia got terribly sick over the past year, and Anna Marie wrote about how Petunia saved her life after Anna Marie fell apart. This essay made me sob, by the way. You can read the full piece here. Here are just a few sections:
Petunia got sick: In February, nearly 10 years after she was first placed in my arms, I instinctively felt something was severely wrong with my French bulldog, Petunia. Every vet I brought her to could find nothing in her tests or blood work that indicated cause for concern, but I knew my pet, and I knew she was sick. She started sleeping all the time; she had periods of confusion; she looked all-around depressed. “Petunia’s heart disease has rapidly progressed,” the cardiologist began, “and it does not look good. But unfortunately, that is not the biggest issue going on.” The neurologist took a look at her as a courtesy, because all the vets here could tell this was not the Petunia we knew. She determined that Petunia likely has a brain tumor or brain stem disease. “Without a scan, it is impossible to determine the exact issue, but Petunia should not go under anesthesia, and to be quite honest, at this point, it doesn’t really matter. I am so sorry to tell you she is at the end of her life.”
Petunia was not a good dog: While Petunia had an undeniably adorable face, she was not what you would call “a good dog.” She was, in fact, very, very naughty. She inherited one of the worst terrier traits: resource guarding. Resource guarding happens when a dog is so protective over something, they become aggressive when you attempt to take it away from them. Many dogs resource-guard their toys. Petunia didn’t do this, but she did guard literally every single thing on the floor that she deemed belonged to her—which were most things.
Moving to Connecticut: Petunia and I moved to Connecticut in December 2020, in the wake of my severe mental health breakdown and what appeared to be the impending end of my marriage. We fused even more deeply together in an attuned and totally symbiotic relationship. She never let me out of her sight. In fact, she watched me intently, as if I was the thing she now needed to guard, though, where guarding once incited her primal rage, she would now guard me with the deepest kind of love I had ever known.
Hospitalization: My mental health hinged wholly on my dog. When I was hospitalized for depression, self-harm, and severe suicidal ideation in the first two weeks of 2021, the doctors asked me to make a list of my reasons for living. Petunia was the one and only thing on that list. When I returned home, it was as if Petunia knew this and took her job very seriously. She mellowed, almost overnight. Except for an errant sock theft here and there, she stopped resource guarding. She sat at my feet at every meal. She followed me around my property without a leash, never straying more than 20 feet and always galloping back to me when she did. Petunia became an entirely new version of herself. It wasn’t a different self. She still tried to bite the vet when she had her nails trimmed and she still chased and bit any man’s feet. Yet she seemed to unlock an extra part of herself that was always there, waiting to emerge when it needed to.
Petunia’s medical bills: A large portion of my life became dedicated to her medical care in the last two years of hers. Medical calamities had always been a part of Petunia’s world. Petunia’s vet records were over 200 pages long, with five entries on pneumonia, chronic ear infections, not one, but two nose surgeries due to her face being literally concave, even a run-in with a snapping turtle who leapt into the air to snap her cheek. Until that day, I had no idea turtles leapt. She had degenerative disc disease in her spine. She had a heart murmur. She had permanent scarring on her lungs. She was allergic to almost everything. Her vet bills were exorbitant. I’m too embarrassed to print them here. Petunia’s life only lasted as long as it did because I was in an incredibly privileged financial situation. Let this be a disclaimer to any person who is lured to Frenchies by their expressive faces and silly personalities: if you are considering getting one, don’t. They are a breed that persists only through human medical intervention, and ethically, that is not a type of dog that should exist. Petunia was a lemon, but she was my lemon, and I loved her unconditionally.
Saying goodbye: On that warm evening in April, I sat outside with my mom, Petunia’s primary care vet, Dr. Evelyn, and her tech, Kelly. The crickets and the peepers sang. The birds chirped and trilled. Only minutes before I had held Petunia, walking her from room to room of our house, recounting all the things we did together in those sacred spaces—“This is where we ate dinner. This is where you watched me bake banana bread. This is where you kept me company while I edited photographs. This is where you sat on your own yoga mat while I stretched. This is where you helped me sew lampshades. This is where we pulled tarot cards every morning. This is where we watched movies.” She was my constant through marriage, four moves, graduate school, a career change (or two), a mental health crisis, a divorce, and finally a reinvention. Now, she sat in my lap as Dr. Emily and Kate facilitated her peaceful passing. From a small speaker, St. Cloud by Waxahatchee played Petunia into the spirit world. This was an album I listened to thousands of times with her, dancing with her in my arms to “Can’t Do Much”; laying with my head in her dog bed, tucked against her paws, listening to “Lilacs”—“I won’t end up anywhere good without you, I need your love too,” I’d sing to her.
A guard dog: She took her last breaths while cradled in my arms. Even after life had left her body, I sat with her, held her, and continued to talk to her. I told her how much I love her. I told her how grateful I was for her love and companionship. I promised her that I was okay and that I would be okay without her; crushed, lonely, but okay. I thanked her for staying with me—for guarding me—until I was strong enough to survive without her.
Yeah, the tears are still streaming down my face. Petunia was the great love of her life, her baby, her guard dog, her companion, her best friend. It’s amazing that Petunia was able to hang on and protect Anna Marie for as long as she did and I’m sure Anna Marie wonders if she would have been able to survive the past three years without Petunia. Heartbreak.
Photos courtesy of Instagram.
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