On June 3 I started my 500 mile trip from Kansas to Panola County, Mississippi with my cat, Pedro, and my son’s eight-year-old bassett hound, Woody.  I guarantee you it was a long ten hours in that small car with Pedro meowing in a cage in the front seat and Woody howling in the back seat, but by mid-afternoon, just like tired children, they had fallen asleep.  I said, “Thank you Lord”.

Woody was apprehensive but excited about her new life in Mississippi, just like I was.  She had a nice new pen and many new sights and sounds.  She made my new life far from home much less lonely.  However, four months later, on October 11, Woody’s life was taken from her when someone decided to poison her.  She died a very painful death in my arms.

Now, the four months of Woody’s life in Mississippi were anything but easy.  A neighbor decided that she needed to run free while I was at work.  I would return in the evening and, when she came home, I would shut her up.  Sure enough, when I got home the next day, she would be out again.  

After we had been here about a month, Woody was hit by a car.  She did not die, but her back legs wouldn’t function.   The vet kept her for a night and did numerous x-rays, which showed that nothing was broken.  He said that he thought with time her legs would come back.  Woody became adept at pulling herself by her front legs.

Strangely enough, the neighbor no longer came over and let Woody out of her pen.  When I came home after work, she would drag herself out of the pen, and when it was bedtime, I would pick her up and carry her back into the pen.  

Woody and I worked on her walking.  I did “doggie” physical therapy with her, flexing her back feet and legs to keep them from freezing up.  Warm baths seemed to feel good to her back and legs, so we did that once a week.  We enjoyed our time together in the yard and in the garden.  She would pull herself around to wherever I was working.  

In the last few weeks, she began getting up and walking short distances.  I was just like a mother when a child begins to walk, clapping and telling her “good girl”.  I suspect in another month, she would have been walking fairly normally.  However, she never got that chance.

I know who poisoned her.  

Woody deserved a lot more from her new life in Mississippi.

/s/Janet Key

Sardis