Abby, aka Boo, aka Boodawg     5/13/94-1/14/07

Boo came to us at 8 weeks, she was so sad looking in her cage at the shelter.  We were told 20# Beagle mix, max much to my dismay because I wanted a big dog but the compromise for getting another dog was to get a medium sized dog.  Well, she grew into a 55# dog and a coonhound breeder of many years pegged her as a bluetick & treeing walker coonhound cross.  Given the area of Wisconsin she came from, that's certainly possible.  Boo was an interesting looking dog, she started with blue ticking and black blotches and over time some brown ticking invaded the blue and brindle invaded the black blotches.  As an old dog the ticked areas became more white and silver invaded some of the brindle blotches.

She was a fast learner, picked up every circus trick I taught her--dance, hop, wave, crawl, play dead, roll over, etc.--the down-stay was always a disaster. I'd drop the leash and when I got about 2 feet away, every time she'd get that devilish look and then she'd bolt.  Just out of my reach.  Oh what a great game that was...for her!  She was a bigger chewer than any of the mals, more of a challenge, but she was really fun!

She and the mals got along fine except Kita, Kita's into world domination and Boo wasn't the submitting type but generally they were ok.  Every time I brought in a new one I got a 'look' but she just went along with it.  I think she liked them because she was SOOO tough on walks, she'd strut out front on her flexi, marking territory and daring any dog she saw to come near her--sure, she had plenty of back-up with 2-5 mals behind her!

They never live long enough. The eyes got a little cloudy but not too bad, the hearing started to go a bit.  Rimadyl gave us 2 1/2 more good quality years than we would have had.  At Thanksgiving of '06 the lymph nodes were enlarged, a vet visit and biopsy confirmed it:  lymphosarcoma.  She was still zooming around the yard and acting fine so we were encouraged.  At Christmas the nodes were a little larger but still, she was acting fine.  In the following weeks she started leaving some food in the bowl--not a lot, and as a young dog she always saved a few bites for later.  It had been many years so that was troubling.  Jan. 13th she went to the vet, we'd had to take her off the Rimadyl to start the pred to try and keep her comfortable and now she was having trouble getting up.  The next day she took a dramattic turn and to spare the details other than to say the cancer must have gone systemic, the only one thing we could do for her was help her to the bridge....we got a lot of really good quality time out of her, 12 1/2 is a pretty long life as bigger dogs go and mercifully--for her and for us--her decline was breath-takingly rapid.

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