30/08/2025
RIP, Woody. 🌈
In many ways, it felt like a small miracle waiting to happen. Two twelve-year-old huskies—one blind—abandoned at a kill shelter by the only family they had ever known. Woody, for all her frailty, managed to bumble through as long as she was guided by her seeing-eye companion, Gunner. They clung to each other in the loud, lonely confusion of the shelter, two gentle souls bewildered by sudden loss.
Desperate not to let them get separated, we sent a video to our partner in crime, Bonnie LaPierre. She wondered if by some chance Husky lovers Dorothy and Jeff might take this pair whose world had already narrowed so much. Miraculously, they said yes. A plan was rushed together and, in the meantime, Bonnie gave Woody and Gunner a safe space in her home.
But this morning, the light in Woody’s eyes dimmed. She was weak, unable to hold herself up even as Bonnie gently tried to steady her. Before she could even be brought to the vet, Woody’s body gave out. She slipped away quietly, leaving behind a silence that is as heavy as it is unfair.
Few would step in for a bonded senior pair, but Woody and Gunner found themselves held by a circle of compassion. As the team prepared for the next hopeful chapter, Woody’s journey ended just on the threshold of the home she deserved. Dorothy and Jeff have asked that her ashes be kept, a small remembrance of a dog who lost so much and still gave so much love.
Rescue work breaks our hearts a thousand times over. We fight to ensure every dog gets a happy ending, but sometimes even our greatest efforts can’t rewrite fate. Woody didn’t live to feel fresh snow under her paws or sink into the comfort of her new bed. But, in her final days, she knew comfort, she knew safety, and she knew—at last—that she was cherished.
Sweet dreams, beautiful Woody. The world is a little dimmer without you in it.
