We adopted Lola in February of 2021. She was a one year old beagle that had been adopted and returned by at least three families. She apparently wasn't good with young children they said. Well our youngest child at the time was eleven so we weren't too worried about that, but we did have a three year old grandson. Our family immediately fell in love with Lola. She liked to play with toys and go on walks in the neighborhood. We didn't have a fenced in yard so we put her out on a lead in the front yard so that she could run around and get some fresh air and do her doggy business. We found out the hard way that beagles are hard to house train and they like to chew on things and hid things. She had a fondness for taking underwear and socks out of the dirty laundry baskets and chewing on them. She liked to take shoes and chew on them also. But she was fun. She had a big personality and she liked people. Anyone she met she would jump up and kiss them on the chin. She liked to be petted, brushed and scratched. In the evenings she would jump up on the couch and find a pillow to sit on and rest. She seemed to sleep a lot. While she was full of energy in the morning and evening, she would take a lot of naps during the day. She liked to find a bed and bury herself under the covers while she napped. She seemed to sleep so often that I referred to her as a cat-dog! Well, as I told the kids when we took her home, I was the one that would end up feeding her and taking her on her morning walks. We would walk every morning in the neighborhood and surrounding areas. We explored the area around the neighborhood that we lived in. We would meet other dogs out for walks and greet them. Some dogs Lola liked, others she did not like. It usually depended on their size and aggressiveness, but it wasn't always easy to figure out. As a beagle, she walked with her nose to the ground. She was constantly sniffing around and marking spots that she liked. Over time I began to look forward to our morning walks, as it became our time together to bond. Lola sometimes walked me and other times I would have to tug on the leash to get her to keep moving at a good pace. Over the years Lola became a big part of our families lives, as she liked to be a part of things like dinner times (she was always hoping for some food to fall off the table or for a scrap to be given to her), she liked birthday parties, holidays and all the normal activities that families do. She was always there for us when we came home from work or school or other events. She liked to look out the window and watch for dogs to come by the house so that she could bark at them. Lola was special. On August 14th, 2026 the day had started just like any other day. I walked Lola in the morning and went to work. Later that day, after I had returned home from work and we had eaten dinner, our daughter was leaving to go see her boyfriend and as she was leaving the house with the front door wide open, my wife was asking our daughter what she and her boyfriend were planning to do for the evening and Lola saw the front door wide open and decided to bolt. She ran straight through the front yard, crossed the street and ran into the neighbors yard, make a hard right hand turn and ran across the street again through the other neighbors yard and went straight for the woods. Lola was on a hunt for rabbits! Now this had happened before, several times over the years. Lola would see an opportunity to run out of the house and she would take it. We would run after her and catch her and bring her back home, sometimes with a scolding. Well, this time she seemed to be very much on the scent of a rabbit, we could tell by the way she was yelping and crying out as she ran. My wife stayed by the field looking for her and I got in my car and went around to the other neighborhood in the hopes of seeing her patrolling the sidewalk or in some other persons yard. After 10 or 15 minutes of searching I went back to the house and to the field where Lola had gone earlier, to see if she had come back. I no longer heard her barking or yelping. I walked through our neighbors backyards heading farther towards where we thought she had gone, and I got a call on my phone from an unknown number. Now we had purchased a collar for Lola some time ago that had her name and my cell number printed on the collar. I answered the call and a lady named Heather said that she found my dog, but it was not good. Lola had been hit by a car! I ran back to the house told my wife what had happened and we rushed to the scene of the accident. Heather and two other men were standing by the side of the road and Lola was lying in the grass next to the road. She was lifeless. She was dead. It was such a shock. This is not the way we had expected to find Lola. She had always come back before or we were able to track her down and walk her back to the house. This time was different. Our life had changed in that instant. Our sweet Lola who we had now had for five and a half years, was gone. We took her back to the house and I carried her in a blanket to the back of our house and placed her on the ground in a corner by the chimney where we kept our firewood. I went back inside the house and started to process what had just happened with my wife and our other daughter. Our youngest son and returned home from work and we told him what had happened. No one could believe it, our Lola was gone!
To be continued...
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