09/26/2026
Elbert Stack carried his beagle a mile out of the woods on the last Saturday of the season, and he's 81.
They'd been running rabbit together since 2017, up on the ridges above the Tennessee line, and in nine seasons Ruby had never once quit on him.
About a mile back on a ridge trail, Ruby came up lame and then stopped putting the back leg down at all.
Elbert sat on a log with the dog across his lap and worked the leg with his thumbs. The knee moved in a way a knee shouldn't.
His phone had no bars up there, and the truck was at the bottom of the ridge.
He got Ruby up over his shoulder the way you carry a deer and started down. That's 28 pounds of beagle on a man who weighs 150 and has a bad shoulder.
Twice he set the dog down to rest, both times on flat ground so Ruby wouldn't try to walk it.
It took him an hour and 20 minutes. He tore his good pants on the fence at the bottom.
The vet in town confirmed the cruciate the next morning. Surgery was $2,800, and Elbert's Social Security doesn't stretch that far, so the clinic took half up front and the rest over six months.
Ruby had the knee done in March and was putting weight on it again by the middle of May.
Elbert doesn't take Ruby out on the ridge anymore. They work the flat ground behind his barn, an hour at a time, and on the first morning Ruby could do it again, Elbert stayed out there until dark.
