And Beagle No. 4 Is … Georgie!

This beautiful deaf girl was one of the four disabled Beagles who arrived here on a Sunday morning in September. We had already agreed to take the other three who were in Georgia — Sally and the two brothers, Billy and Stuart — and our pet transport company was just a couple of days out from picking them up.

That’s when I got an email from a private rescuer in southern Virginia. She had just become aware of a senior deaf Beagle who had been dumped at the local animal control shelter, and she wanted to know if we could take her.

The story, as with so many we’ve heard over the years, is maddening. This delightful, house-trained, well-mannered little dog suddenly started having accidents in the house … peeing frequently. Rather than take her to a vet clinic — because a urinary tract infection would have been too obvious, right? — the owner took her to the shelter and dropped her off. That’s right. After having her for years, sudden peeing in the house warranted not a veterinary appointment but getting dumped at a shelter.

Yes, the shelter’s vet quickly diagnosed a UTI and an inexpensive round of antibiotics cleared it up.

Our pet transport company kindly agreed to re-route the driver to pick up Georgie on the way up from Atlanta, and that’s how three Beagles became four.

Georgie is, well, a perfect dog. She is sweet, funny, completely house-trained, gets along with everyone, and is as cute as can be. I mean, she is one of those “once-in-a-lifetime” dogs who all too often end up with us, and we always wonder, why would anyone give up on a dog like this?

But, their loss is our gain. And we are thrilled to have Miss Georgie in our lives!

That wood stove, by the way, is one of her favorite places to be. She just loves that thing. (Funny coincidence I mentioned to Alayne the other day: I’ve noticed a pattern in that it’s the dogs who come to us from the South who seem most drawn to the wood stove. I know it’s warmer down there, but still … we’re talking wood stove heat!)

She’s also a real snuggler. Here she is sandwiched in between Sally on the left and blind Honey on the right, in a photo I took back in October:

(Sadly, we lost Honey the day after Thanksgiving. She had a rare sudden pulmonary event and spent five days on oxygen at our emergency and specialty hospital in Burlington, but couldn’t pull through. Alayne drove over that Friday morning to be with her when the end came. Needless to say, Thanksgiving had been an anxious, emotionally wrenching period. We simply adored Honey, and her loss really wiped us out.)

But having wonderful dogs like Georgie and Sally always helps ease the burden of unexpected losses, and there isn’t a day that goes by that those two Beagle girls don’t make us laugh.

Here they are like sardines in a can:

So that completes the Beagle contingent!