We were fostering Little Red in 2014 when we unexpectedly lost our first Bloodhound, Bella, to cancer. So Little Red stayed. She became the alpha with Bella's passing and made sure that each new foster that arrived knew the rules. I can't count the number of dogs that she "trained."
When we moved from Atlanta to Kansas City in 2017, she discovered the joy of snow and never tired of it. Little Red loved going to visit my mother-in-law at her assisted living center and getting petted by all of the residents. When the pandemic hit, she spent her days sleeping on the sofa in my husband's home office or photobombing his Zoom calls.
In December of 2020, I noticed she was dragging a rear foot on our walks. A neurologist diagnosed her with degenerative myelopathy, similar to Lou Gehrig's Disease in humans. While not painful, it would cause steady deterioration in her hind legs, followed by loss of bowel and bladder control in 6-12 months. 8 months later, she couldn't stand up on her own. She got her first McDonald's cheeseburger and we let her go.
The house is painfully still without her singing. We were so lucky to have had her in our lives.
Molly and Paul