It is with profound sadness and very heavy hearts that we report the passing of our beautiful and loving Fonda on Thursday, June 25, 2020. She was 8 1/2 years old and lived with us for almost 6 years. She was our lovely and regal princess. We are heartbroken. Her passing will leave a huge hole in our hearts and lives forever. Although she never really made much noise, without her the house seems so still, deathly quiet and empty. It will never be the same without her. We will miss her tremendously.

Fonda was a retired racing Greyhound born on Nov. 15, 2011. As volunteers for the organization, FORG (Friends Of Retired Greyhounds - www. FriendsOfRetiredGreyhounds.org ), we took her into our home as a foster on August 23, 2014 along with a second foster hound, King (now Omaha), a coyote chasing Greyhound mix. The three of us (Cathy, Joe R. and Joe A.) picked her up from the FORG transport at about 11:30 pm that Saturday night. She was so stressed by the long trip from an Iowa kennel, that she was shaking and hyperventilating. The three of us stayed with her in our family room until 3:00am in the morning to try and get her settled down. Cathy slept on the couch in the room with her the remainder of the night. By Sunday morning we realized she was still in great distress and very dehydrated. So, we immediately took her to the vet. We were told that she was so bad, that if we had waited much longer she would not have made it. They kept her overnight and put her on IV fluids. The remainder of that week we had to take her to the regular vet to get re-hydrated by IV.

For several days, she lived in, and was confined to, our family room, which had easy direct access to our back yard. When she finally recovered and was strong enough, she desperately wanted to go up the 7 stairs to our main living level, but she did not know how to go up and down stairs. When Fonda was finally healthy, she saw King at the top of the stairs and jealously watched him being able to explore our house. We would have trained her to up and down stairs, but fortunately she watched King do it several times a day. In a short time, after watching King, she learned how to navigate the stairs on her own.

Well, after 4 months of having a now healthy Fonda in our home, we became failed fosters and officially adopted her on December 28, 2014. For the next almost 6 years, she became our lovely little princess as we tried to provide her with a loving, calm, and comfortable home. She was an integral part of our family. Cathy took her almost every morning on a 2-mile walk on the sidewalk around Dublin Park, which is just up the street from our house. Each night, Cathy would retire to bed a few hours before Joe, who would attend to Fonda's needs for the rest of the night - sometimes a final feeding and always going out the backyard to do her business, then getting on her jammies and tucked into her floor bed in the living room.

She never misbehaved in ANY way. She was a welcoming and friendly companion to all the other Greyhounds we fostered over the years, and, until this day, a host friend to the many Greyhounds we have, and will continue to, dog sit for our local adopters.

She was mostly a very healthy dog, but she had a chronic bacterial infection in her gums, which made them inflamed and tender and which we treated as needed. She got regular teeth cleanings. Then last weekend, on Friday June 19th, Fonda would not do her walk and just led Cathy back to the car. Then she stopped eating and was vomiting, even after just drinking water. She was also very lethargic and was just not her usual self. We took her to the emergency vet on Monday (6/22). They were concerned about her 10 pound weight loss and took blood samples, but could not get the results until Tuesday morning. That morning they called us with the results and her kidney numbers were way higher than her normal readings. They suspected Addisons Disease and had us come in that same day to do more extensive blood testing. As they were preparing her for the testing, the technician noticed her left leg was swollen. They cancelled the blood tests and took x-ray of her leg. It was determined she had bone cancer, which is very common with Greyhounds in later life, but it still was an unexpected and sudden shock. They said our course was now to focus on getting her back to normal weight and healthier. They sent us home with medications to stop the vomiting and stimulate her appetite and CBD oil for pain relief.

The rest of that day (Tuesday, 6/23) and through Wednesday, she seemed to be getting back to some normalcy - eating her usual portions of food, resting comfortably on her usual bed in the living room and going downstairs to go out the family room into the back yard. Occasional bouts of panting (indicating pain) were relieved by pain pills.

It was then Thursday (6/25) morning when things took a rapid turn for the worse. When Cathy let her out back to pee, Fonda suddenly seemed to lose orientation and was dazed and confused. She walked right into a dead bush and Cathy had to pick her out of it and then walked up to the fence and just stared as if she could not see. She then had difficulty getting back into the house. When she was in, she obviously wanted to lay down on her floor bed, but could not get down, either because of pain or her brain was muddled and she could not figure it out. We also noticed she was standing on her front right paw bent back at the ankle - the opposite leg than the one with cancer. It took us about an hour to get her laid down comfortably. Our suspicion was that Fonda had a neurological event, possibly a mini-stroke, later confirmed by a vet.

With all things considered, Fonda's chronic gum infection, slowly failing kidneys, the bone cancer, and now this mini-stroke, it was time to make the very hard decision to initiate end-of-life care. With Fonda being such a "nervous nellie" in new and strange places, we decided to do it at home for her comfort and peace. We had already researched local end-of-life services vets, and www.HomeWithDignity.com were highly recommended by our friend Marilyn, who had recently used them. They have extensive information on their website explaining every step of the process and they were extremely helpful and sensitively answered questions on the phone. We called and were able to get them scheduled to come to the house between 5:00 and 6:00pm that same day. In the meantime, from about Noon, Fonda rested comfortably, peacefully and pain free on her floor bed in the family room. So, when we informed Joe A. of our final decision, he immediately said he would come over to be with us.

We can not say enough about how wonderfully kind, understanding and professional Dr. Jim Humphries and his assistant Nick from www.HomeWithDignity.com were in comforting us and guiding us through the process, and even more importantly how they made it so peaceful and comfortable for Fonda.

Fonda passed over the rainbow bridge at 6:15pm Thursday, June 25, 2020. So, Fonda came full circle - from her initial time with the three of us in our family room on August 23, 2014, to her passing with the three of us in our family room on June 25, 2020

In memory of Fonda and to continue our love of Greyhounds, we will continue to provide our Greyhounds Only Dog Sitting services, which we also hope will partially fill the void in our hearts..

Below are a selection (117) of the several hundreds of photos that we have taken of Fonda and her hound friends over the years. There are even a few humans included! There is also a Videos Page with 16 videos.

Fonda had many hound friends that stayed at our house, at first as fosters, and then for our dog sitting. We hope we have shown all of them in these pictures and videos. We have tried our best to correctly name all of her doggie friends. If any adopters see their hound misidentified, please let us know, and we will correct it.

Give all your hounds an extra hug today from us and Fonda.

Lovingly,
Cathy and Joe R. Luciano