It is with a heavy heart that I must announce the passing yesterday of Lily, our beloved beagle. She was 16. She had been suffering from a bladder tumor and she took a turn for the worse last week. We had to put her down.

Lily was a rescue. She was being neglected by the neighbor, and came to live on our front porch at the farm, living off the table scraps we fed her two days a week. In October 2004, she dropped a litter of puppies in the back yard, and it was then we decided to adopt her.

She was a devoted companion of Barney, the Wonder Dog, and with his passing in 2006 we got Jay. Jay and Lily were close friends. Lily and I were inseperable for most of her life.  She pasted herself next to me in bed every night.  We scouted deer and turkey together. She was always the queen of my back seat, whenever I went out driving.  Lily could track a wounded deer, and tree a squirrel.  She and Barney used to run rabbits together in the field. In her later years she enjoyed watching TV and gazing out the patio door for squirrels and rabbits.

I will never forget the first time I cooked up some superannuated venison and rice for the dogs.  I spent a morning in the winter thawing, cubing and boiling about 20 lbs of meat and then using the broth to cook rice.  Lily and Jay were enthralled. All afternoon we bagged individual servings in ziplocks and put them in the freezer.  Finally their dinnertime came and KYHillchick served them up their first full portion.  I had already gone to bed for the night, but I heard what was going on.  I heard the empty dog bowls being chased across the floor as they licked them clean.  Suddenly, there was a clatter of toenails coming across the living room floor, and then there was Lily, leaping onto the bed, showering me with love, thanking me for her venison.  She had remembered it was me that had prepared it, and wanted to let me know.

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