A tribute to Iowna

A local kittah delivers a letter to Prince to read.

Tears flow as he reads it to all:

Smile with me as you read of her life, for that is more
important than her end.

Iowna was born Iowna Link to a very prestigeous line of beagles
and show winners. She was no backyard breeder product but from
a line of show winners. She'd have been on the ring to show
best of breed except she was slightly smaller than classic so
was instead tested for agility and came up in spades as good at
it, making a lot of money for her first owner who loved her and
let her just 'be a dog with a mission'. She lived a golden
puppyhood and young adulthood. Spaying ws delayed as she had
high potential to breed show winners. Then adversity hit. She
developed Glaucoma at age 9.

The first owner tried to deal with it but could not. She lost
the sight in her left eye fairly fast then the right eye set
in. He fond her a safe spot with a no kill facility that had
the finances to treat her and they did. During that time, one
eye had to be removed and the blind one was treated with
ablation (Gentimycin treatments). Placing a 1 eyed blind dog
isnt easy but she was in a good rescue and if there was a
problem, it was they had to block the cat tree because they
were afraid she'd fall out when she climbed it to snooze with
the resident cat.

Yes, she was a climber, agility dog champ, and she loved cats
who loved her back.

Enter Iowna age just shy of 11 to our home. Her birth records
show she was born 2 July 2002 and would have turned 17 this
year.

It was almost like having a curious toddler who wants to climb
everything! Endless amusement as we'd find we had to bolt
bookshelves to walls because she'd climb them. She'd knock the
books out to get higher so we tried bungee cords and dang if we
didnt find her 5ft up then! We set up a camera and caught her.
She was using them to climb!

Ever found your dog IN the Xmas tree several feet up? LOL, the
fix is cup hooks and 100lb test fishing line. We have wood
beams up there so we'd tie the tree up at the top to the beams.
We also had our local Xmas tree guy special cut the bottom
branches so they were well above her eye level.

We learned that the dog house has to be 18 inches from the fence
because otherwise, she used the fence to the dog house beams to
climb it and lay on the warm top (Yup! Snoopy!)

She also taught our other dog (sighted, passed 2 months ago) to
climb the woodpile as it's nicely sun-warm up there. Great, now
I had 2 dogs 4ft up on a wood pile!

Iowna was also a fantastic ambassador for blind dogs locally.
I'd walk her around and the kids would argue who got to walk
her a bit next (we used a rotation) and they learned about
blind dogs. Sadly many people assume a blind dog should be put
down but around my streets, they learned better from her. They
called her the 'Snifflilator' and learned that is how blind
dogs 'see the world'.

Iowna, ya done good girl. Play now at the rainbow bridge and
I'll be there eventually when my time is done.