01/13/2026
We sent Sheena across the rainbow bridge today. She had been with the rescue for 9 years. She was pulled from the Hayward Shelter under the name “Bellissima.” She had major skin issues (inflamed, hair loss, etc.). She was VERY shutdown. The shelter put her up for adoption but she just laid in the corner of her kennel with this pitiful look on her face the seemed to say “please, just put me out of my misery.” Shelter staff agreed with Belissima’s self-assessment and scheduled her for euthanasia. We observed her in her kennel at the shelter and came to the same conclusion that maybe euthanasia was the more humane thing to do. Then at the last minute we changed our minds and moved to save her. Her demeanor perked up when she was leaving the shelter. She appeared to be a dog that just needed to be out of the shelter. We got her skin issues addressed (it was some sort of autoimmune infection that would require a lifelong treatment with cyclosporine). In her new foster home, she found a safe cubby space to hang out, and that was her life. She went on a couple of sleepovers with potential adopters but would find a place to hang out and not interact with the humans. Over the years there were a few negative interactions with the smaller dogs in the foster home, and the rescue considered euthanizing her. But putting the fear of god into her if she tried to engage with a small dog, seemed to work as a management strategy.
A year and a half ago, she started showing signs of back leg weakness and a tell-tale knuckling under of her back paws as she walked. Googling her symptoms pointed us to a possibility that she has degenerative myelopathy (DM). DM can only be definitively diagnosed with an autopsy of the animal’s spine, but there are some other things that can support a suspected diagnosis – one of them being a DNA profile. We always wondered what her breed mix was, so we sent in her blood sample for DNA analysis. It came back that she was German Shepherd (a breed that is susceptible to the condition) and Pitbull. She had one copy of the gene associated with DM.
DM is very similar to the human disease: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS / Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Mercifully it usually develops in older dogs that have already ready lived a long, good life. It also is NOT painful to the dog. It can progress differently in dogs with one copy of the gene, as opposed to two copies. Sheena’s disease progressed in such a way that it only affected her back legs. She remained continent until the last few days. Choosing when to say goodbye is challenging. With Sheena, we can honestly say that she had a better quality of life in the last 18 months of the disease, than her other 9-10 years. We brought her to the adoption center on a regular basis which she actually loved going to (something that she didn’t like to do prior to DM), because the volunteers would give her treats. We will miss her, but we also feel confident that she had the best life possible, considering her temperament, and past history.
