diff --git a/tests/etl/test_push_loader.py b/tests/etl/test_push_loader.py
index a6ce96df0ab..e51a19c5b5d 100644
--- a/tests/etl/test_push_loader.py
+++ b/tests/etl/test_push_loader.py
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 from treeherder.etl.push_loader import (
     GithubPullRequestTransformer,
     GithubPushTransformer,
+    HgPushFetchError,
     HgPushTransformer,
     PulsePushError,
     PushLoader,
@@ -218,3 +219,18 @@ def test_ingest_github_push_comma_separated_branches(
         "https://firefox-ci-tc.services.mozilla.com",
     )
     assert Push.objects.count() == expected_pushes
+
+
+def test_fetch_push_raises_on_empty_pushes(monkeypatch):
+    """Test that a HgPushFetchError is raised when fetch_json returns a dict without 'pushes'"""
+    monkeypatch.setattr("treeherder.etl.push_loader.fetch_json", lambda url: {})
+    transformer = HgPushTransformer(
+        {
+            "payload": {
+                "repo_url": "https://hg.mozilla.org/try",
+                "pushlog_pushes": [{"push_full_json_url": "http://example"}],
+            }
+        }
+    )
+    with pytest.raises(HgPushFetchError):
+        transformer.fetch_push("http://example", repository="try")
diff --git a/treeherder/etl/push_loader.py b/treeherder/etl/push_loader.py
index 05e3a67a5ae..168c73d08a0 100644
--- a/treeherder/etl/push_loader.py
+++ b/treeherder/etl/push_loader.py
@@ -261,7 +261,47 @@ def fetch_push(self, url, repository, sha=None):
 
         logger.debug("fetching for %s %s", repository, url)
         # there will only ever be one, with this url
-        push = list(fetch_json(url)["pushes"].values())[0]
+        try:
+            data = fetch_json(url)
+        except Exception as e:
+            logger.exception(f"Failed fetching push JSON from {url} for {repository}: {e}")
+            try:
+                newrelic.agent.record_custom_event(
+                    "hg_push_fetch_failure",
+                    {"url": url, "repository": repository, "error": str(e)},
+                )
+            except Exception:
+                # NewRelic failures should not block ingestion
+                logger.debug("NewRelic event failed for fetch error")
+            raise HgPushFetchError(f"Failed to fetch JSON from {url}: {e}") from e
+
+        pushes = None
+        if isinstance(data, dict):
+            pushes = data.get("pushes")
+
+        if not pushes or not isinstance(pushes, dict):
+            # Log data in warning and raise error
+            data_keys = list(data.keys()) if isinstance(data, dict) else None
+            logger.warning(
+                f"Malformed or empty push JSON from {url} for {repository}: data-keys={data_keys}"
+            )
+            try:
+                newrelic.agent.record_custom_event(
+                    "hg_push_fetch_malformed",
+                    {"url": url, "repository": repository, "data_keys": data_keys},
+                )
+            except Exception:
+                logger.debug("NewRelic event failed for malformed Hg push data")
+            raise HgPushFetchError(f"Malformed or empty 'pushes' for {url}")
+
+        # Safely get the first push
+        try:
+            push = next(iter(pushes.values()))
+        except Exception as e:
+            logger.exception(
+                f"Failed to extract first push from pushes for {repository} {url}: {e}"
+            )
+            raise HgPushFetchError(f"Unable to extract push from 'pushes' for {url}: {e}") from e
 
         commits = []
         # we only want to ingest the last 200 commits for each push,
@@ -285,3 +325,9 @@ def fetch_push(self, url, repository, sha=None):
 
 class PulsePushError(ValueError):
     pass
+
+
+class HgPushFetchError(Exception):
+    """Raised when fetching or parsing a push resultset fails."""
+
+    pass