Shorty lost her battle to an aggressive spreading cancer. Despite radiation and chemotherapy, the cancer quickly spread and grew throughout Shorty's body. Eventually, Shorty's bladder became obstructed. With tremendous pain in our hearts, we had to help Shorty enter the Rainbow Bridge. We miss her dearly, everything feels different, but we know she's no longer suffering.

We've had Shorty in our lives since May 2010. As Carol's health began to impact her life more and more, Carol yearned companionship her senior year of college. Deep in the hills near Redmond, WA there was litter of beagles available outside of our price range. Regardless, we decided to go see the puppies that were available. It turns out, that we were destined to have Shorty in our lives. She was the runt of the litter, and the last puppy available. It also felt, like the owners wanted to get away from her troublemaking ways. At 8 weeks old, Shorty being Shorty made the drive home a perilous one as she worked her way onto Carol's lap and howled for attention. Jose was initially not interested in owning a dog, but within a few hours, Shorty found Jose's lap to take a nap, and his life changed forever.

Shorty was truly one of a kind, and irreplaceable. Shorty was incredibly food-driven, intelligent, independent, calculative, and loving. We knew we were in trouble, when she won a food-eating competition at a Beaglepalooza with over 100 beagles competing. It wasn't even close. She was capable of luring victims into a sense of false security, before pouncing to steal their food. With this basic strategy, Shorty was able to steal a Chipotle Burrito, Jimmy John's, pupusas, cereal, 7-layer bean dip, pizza, panes rellenos, steak, and so much more. But her food hunting ways didn't stop there. Shorty taught herself to open her crate, open zippers, unlatch her food bin, and open gates, all with the intent of finding out what she can eat while unsupervised. There was also no dog puzzle too challenging to stop her from getting hidden treats.

Although, most people will remember Shorty for the way that she stole food from them, we'll always remember Shorty for the love and compassion that she always gave us. Shorty could always sense when Carol was having a bad day; refusing to leave her side. Shorty absolutely loved to cuddle up with us under a blanket, sometimes wrapping herself up like a burrito (she wasn't the best sharer). And there's no better feeling, than waking up next to Shorty laying her head on your shoulder. She just found a way to be hugged.

Shorty made a lot of great friends throughout her life, and even helped us make a few. We met some our best friends because of Shorty. We wouldn't have known Morten & Ale without Shorty and Flash hitting it off and running around Bellevue Park. We wouldn't have met Tom, Emily, Matt & Angel, if Gunner never ran into our apartment to say hello to Biggie & Shorty. And we always remember Shorty's college boy toy Milo. We even adopted Biggie because Shorty hit it off so well with another Cavalier King Charles, Ruby. Little did we know, Shorty never actually wanted a sibling but eventually warmed up to Biggie as well.

There's an emptiness in our hearts and our home. She is deeply missed, and not a day goes by that we don't weep her loss.