In Loving Memory of Rhea

When I was a kid, a distant relative came to visit my family. He'd been in a concentration camp during the war. After watching our boxer for a while, and seeing how loved and cared for he was, he said, "Even a dog has to have luck in this life." 

Rhea didn't have much luck in life. But what luck she had was because of Boxer Rescue. She was born into a hell-hole of a home, kept in a cage for eight years, neglected and abused with 26 other boxers. She was bred constantly. Like all the others, she was a wreck when she was finally rescued from that house. But somehow, her spirit never surrendered. She just wagged and wagged and wagged. 

After she went to the vet and had some mammary cancers removed, she came to us to be fostered. We grew to love her deeply as she healed and came out of her shell. She became especially attached to me, her foster mom, and liked to curl up in the kneehole under my desk as I worked. She followed us from room to room, wiggling, asking nothing more than to be loved. 

Finally, after nine months, she had a "forever" home. But, sadly, forever wasn't long. She had two very happy months with her new parents and her two adoptive boxer brothers, and then her cancer came back. She suffered, and finally had to be helped out of this life and into the next. It broke our hearts that she couldn't have had more of the good time to wash away the bad.

We miss Rhea, and continue to wish for a world in which all dogs are born lucky, as they deserve to be.