From Billy:Our sweet golden dog Mabel has passed on.
From the streets of the Irish Channel, she had a wild love of people, her old boyfriend Max, her sidekick Ruth-Anne, and, most of all, her savior Nikki who cajoled me into keeping her upon returning home with a tiny puppy following a argument in which I had been in the wrong. I didn’t put up much resistance.
The night Nikki found her, she had been walking the streets with a pack of feral dogs that roamed the Irish Channel terrorizing cats and children. Nikki thought she was a Chihuahua but she was just a baby street dog. We never could sort out her breed but her odd yodels suggested some sort of African bushdog and her staggering speed, a whippet.
Anyone who has ever come to our house has been jumped on and kissed by Mabel in her effort to show a little love, and get a little back in return.
Her health failed very suddenly and out of the blue last evening when she was walking with Nikki and Ruthie through the tony, live oak and mansion lined streets of the Garden District, a handful of blocks from where Nikki had found her.
A good run for a scrappy Irish Channel kid.
We were lucky to have found her. And vice versa.
Good girl, Mabel.
