I want to share a pic of our rescued B&T coonhound Georgia, who was 17 years old when we lost her in June. We adopted her from ABTCR in Lutz, FL in 2001 when she was 5 years old. She had obviously been through more than we could imagine in her prior life with all of the scars and fear to prove it. But she was so beautiful and we couldn't leave without her, hoping that we could eventually help her overcome her fear and give her the happiness she deserved. She was terribly afraid of men, loud noises, sudden movements and was actually afraid to eat her food for the first 2 weeks. Georgia was never your "typical" dog, she did not know how to play, had no interest in toys or bones and her tail was almost always between her legs under her belly especially when she had to go outside. We just kept trying to heal her with love and while she did get more comfortable at home with us nothing else really changed for the next ten years. She just existed...but something happened in her last two years with us. As her black and tan colors changed to black and white and she became a senior...she started to enjoy the long walks that she and my husband would take, somehow her fears seemed to be gone, she started to bay for the first time in her life when we would come home at night (we didn't even know she had a voice until then) and every once in a while we would get a wag of her tail. We never did get a coonie kiss from her but we were happy with the little things that she did at the end of her life because we could finally see that she was as happy as she knew how to be! People told us that she was lucky to have us but we were really the lucky ones to have gained her trust and her love after all those years. We sure do miss her.

Virginia Korstjens