The story of Rachel
Rachel was born from champion bloodlines of my wife's uncle Coonhound. My wife's uncle, was into coon hunting. Training and competing in coon hunts. For those who don't know, coon hunting is Coonhounds treeing raccoons. A Coonhound tracks a raccoon, chases it down, and runs it up a tree. In competition, the faster and amount of raccoons, the more points you get. My wife's uncle owned Rachel, he trained and entered her into competitions. She was granted the title of "Grand Night Champion". And placed 4th and 5th in consecutive years in the world. My wife's uncle treated her as a "working dog", not as a pet. He did take good care of her. He kept her in a outdoor kennel with a doghouse. But, with his declining health, he couldn't care for his many Coonhounds. Rachel was his favorite, and entrusted her to us.
We brought Rachel home to our 3 Bassett Hounds. She fitted in right away with our dogs. Rachel found her way out of the fenced in yard, which I had to fix. Little did I know, Coonhounds can overcome many obstacles when on the hunt. I witnessed myself a Coonhound scale a 6 foot chain link fence. So my fence was nothing to her. So, we had to cable her up in the yard with a doghouse while we were at work, and keep an eye on her when we were home. Just when we thought she was getting used to our house being her home, we let her off the cable. But, one night she took off. The next day we get a call from a neighbor that she sleeping in their garage. Eventually, she learned that she was retired from coon hunting. She loved and protected her house and yard. She didn't like anyone she didn't know into her yard, but she was everyone's friend outside the yard. She loved to start the singing with the Bassett Hounds. And she loved the "butt rubs". She would walk right in front of me on the couch, stop, turn back and look, and demand a butt rub. And when I would stop, I would get the look again like "I didn't tell you to stop".
We had the vet check her towards the end. She was losing weight and started to have trouble walking. The vet said she might have breast cancer among other ailments. At 15 years old, the time for a hard decision had to be made. Her last night, she slept in our bed. She slept against me the whole night. And like a woman, pushed me to the edge of the bed. :) The next day, we waited for the vet to put her down. We spent as much time as we could with her. I held her as she pasted away saying how much we loved her. R.I.P Rachel
