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My old beagle is now 9 1/2. Back in his prime, he ran so hard he wore the fronts off his ears from ripping through cover in pursuit of rabbits.







Beyond the chronic ear problems, he was sewn up twice from damages incurred while running rabbits: once when his rib cage was torn open on a fence, the second when he went into a brush pile and punctured his inner leg with a stick. After the second incident, he wound up running in a field trial the following weekend, with duct tape over his gauze covered stiches and a drain tube hanging out. He also got hung going over old fencing a couple times by his back legs, once with rusted wire stuck in his leg. He just hung there till I found him, rolled the wires over, and off he went to catch up with the pack. I also recall when he ran with a locust thorn driven in the back of his paw up into his leg, doing all he could to stay with the pack.

Earlier this spring, I almost lost him to a liver infection, with the bilirubin in his blood registering over 11x the upper range of acceptable. Luckily I got him to the vet early enough for the medication to kick in and he pulled through. During that time, he moved out of the kennels and back inside, living the good life getting pampered by my girls. Also starting to enjoy female visitors from time to time now that he's retired.