Polly came into our local animal shelter back in 2024, pregnant. She was such a good dog that she stayed in the director’s office, had her puppies, and then remained in the director’s office until all of her puppies were adopted. That’s when Polly came into our life. Her picture popped up on the shelter’s website and we asked about her right away. We loved her and she loved us for 12 years, but, today we had to say goodbye.

Polly was “The Smart One”. She could get on any table or counter, even though she was only about 20 pounds with the height to match. She trained us to push in our chairs when we got up from the table and to keep the footstool away from the counter. If the door was open a crack, she was out in a flash on a walk-about searching the neighbors’ trash. We learned to close doors until they clicked. One time a closet door was slightly open and she and her sometimes partner in crime, Peanut, feasted on an open bag of dog food. The remedy for this extremely distended belly was no food for 48-72 hours. In her younger days, Polly could throw her body against the screen door and escape that way too. The average Canine IQ in our house dropped several points today, and there are still four dogs here.

Polly loved walks and hikes (on leash) for most of her life and spent a lot of summers in Wolfeboro. In 2025, she was too sick for that long road trip so she stayed home in Oxford. She also stopped wearing her harness with dog tags since she really wasn’t venturing forth much any more. We really thought she wouldn’t make it to the end of the summer, but just like tables and doors, she was too smart to let cancer stop her from getting what she wanted. Here she is with the rest of our crew waiting for a treat the other day. It’s so hard to know when to say goodbye. The cancer was ravaging her body and though she could still walk (barely) and still ate (last meal = scrambled eggs for lunch, thank you B), we knew it was time.