We lost a beloved pet friend, Daisy, on January 28. We woke up and she was stretched out on the living room floor. We were devastated and were resolved to skip getting another dog for a few months.

Dog grief is a strange thing. We couldn’t resist checking several shelter websites by Jan 31. Daisy had been a hard luck rescue and we felt the best way to honor her memory was to pursue another hard luck rescue. On Feb 1 we saw this picture.

This poor baby looked so lost and forlorn we knew we had to meet her so down we went to the shelter. But we couldn’t meet her. When she was picked up as a stray they found out she was seriously injured. When we arrived she was still in recovery from her injuries, the worse of which was a large deep bite wound just below her ear. It was so deep at first they thought she’d been shot! The bite had fractured some bones in her jaw and they didn’t know if she’d be able to eat. If she couldn’t eat the prognosis was euthanasia. She ate.

We couldn’t go to the shelter on February 2 due to some medical appointments so we called. They said she was still in isolation but she was doing well and would be available for us to meet on the 3rd and to come on down.

We got there when they opened and they brought her out. She’d still been in the medical wing. The technician carried her and put her down, then she looked up at us and rolled over for us to rub her tummy. We were hooked.

She’d recently had puppies and she had an additional bulge in her lower abdomen. The shelter spays or neuters all dogs & cats but she had to wait two weeks until her bite wounds healed to be spayed but we took her home as a “foster-to-adopt” which theoretically would change after the spay was complete.

Veterinarians volunteer on a rotational basis and the first and second spay appointments were successively postponed because the vets knew this was no routine surgery and not enough time had been set aside the first two times: they determined she had two inguinal hernias.

When that surgery was complete, they decided they needed to address her other serious health issues, determined by pre-surgical examination. She had serious dental issues and she was heart worm positive.

After a two week recovery from her surgery, she went in for what turned out to be NINE extractions. They also determined that she had already lost ten teeth. Good thing dogs have 42!

She recovered from that and is eating very well. She’s been on an antibiotic protocol that is a prelude to getting the multi-shot heart worm protocol that begins at the end of this month.

Through all of this, she’s been a trooper and is an absolute joy. You wish they could tell you their stories. She’s 100% genetically a beagle, although her dapple patterns mean that somewhere way down the line some ancestor acquired the merle gene. That means that dog breed purists don’t consider dogs like her, pretty as they are, to be ‘pure’ Beagles.

What we think: she was used as a hunting dog breeder (Beagles are used a lot in NC hunting) and the hernias were a result of her latest pregnancy (or multiple pregnancies). We think she was abused because she still shies away when you reach down to pet her head. Her dental issues are probably a result of long term confinement … it’s called cage-biter syndrome. All conjecture. Our theory is that the previous owners well knew she’d developed the hernias and abandoned her as soon as her puppies were weaned. An alternate theory is that she was abandoned or escaped before she gave birth and she was injured trying to save her pups. No puppies were found with her. She’s still officially a foster-to-adopt until the heart worm treatments are complete.

There is no way of knowing her truth, but that’s all behind her and we love her.