‘So tender and loving’ March 17, 2025

Sophie was adopted from NHS in March of 2011, a foster dog of another employee. We were not looking for another dog, but she looked a lot like a previous dog we had. So, I told this staff member that I would take her home for the night as a foster to adopt, only if she came to me when called. Well, she walked right over to me and put her head in my lap. I took her home, and everyone fell in love with her.

I came back the next day and adopted her. Sophie has to be by far the best dog (friend) we have ever had. She was perfect from the start. She loved women, but she was not fond of men with facial hair. She was not aggressive towards them; she’d just bark and hide.

She had many nicknames: Sofa, Sofa pia, dopuss, and she answered to them all … except Sophie. She was like a kid. “They said my real full name; I must be in trouble!”

Sophie had a regurgitation problem and would occasionally vomit bile, so we took her to the vet. He said that she had a flat spot in her intestine and would occasionally vomit. Unfortunately, he said it looked as if someone had kicked her in the stomach. Poor girl. We tolerated it and continued to love her more and more.

Sophie loved other dogs, and kids. My granddaughter would get so excited to see her. Her words when she came over were “there’s my girl” and would cuddle with her.

Sophie was never a furniture dog. She preferred the floor. We tried, but she was not having it.

I never expected a dog to change my life, but she did. She was so tender and loving, afraid of the world, but we protected her from it. As she grew older, she became blind and mostly deaf, but that did not slow my old girl down. We just could not rearrange the furniture, and she let you know if you did something that did not make her happy.

In August of 2023, Sophie suffered a stroke that she did not recover from. We had to have her put down. I lost my friend and companion. Sophie was always there when I was sad. She was with me through the death of a sister and my mom. She just sat with me and listened to me cry, and she knew just when the right time was to hug me or to just lie her head in my lap. Losing her was hard on the whole family. Everyone was at work, so no one really got to say goodbye. Her favorite person in the world was my son Kevin. He was so good with her, he would lie on the floor and wrestle with her, or run with her outside. He was her favorite human, and she was his favorite dog. We had to call him and Facetime him, so he could tell her goodbye and so she could say her goodbyes. Sophie now sits on a shelf with three other family pets. I know that someday, we will meet again.

-Charlotte, NHS employee

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