Still don't know what to say about this. I let my girl go last month. Not much of an outward sign of any issues until that Monday when she stopped eating. Everything she attempted to eat after that (chicken, canned food) seemed to cause distress and really she didn't want those after Wendesday. I took her to the vet where something showed something on the X-rays. We had planned on an ultrasound the next day after getting fluids and meds but overnight she really got worse and I felt it was time.
She had a roller coaster of a life, with issues during training. Eventually she wound up at Sanford-Orlando where she won early, much to our surprise (as a one-time FTH pup I was following her career by then). Then she stopped winning for a while and moved up to the Marathon. She took to the distance and managed to set a track record and win some 20 races over the year and a half. I also managed to go down and see her and her sister Flower race whirl they were still active.
When her sister Flower retired I was already heading north so I gave her a ride from North Carolina to Minnesota, where it was a balmy 8 degrees when we crossed the border. A few short months later it was Kali's turn to retire and I went down to pick her up at the NC/Virginia border. Single digits are much more rare in this parts. She pretty smoothly fit in the house with Zuni and, in a weird turn of events, with Wiki--who I took in a as a senior almost immediately after bringing Kali home. Wiki passed just a year later at around 10 1/2. That's going to be a tough age for me going forward. She tolerated the extensive walks Zuni took us on and didn't go after the resident cats (non resident ones were a different story). The two of them became quite close.
She made a few trips to Minnesota to visit her sister (and at least once to visit mama). Also had quite a few Deweys and GIGs. Otherwise we had our routine of three walks a day and the occasional trip to the park. She also got to visit her 'second family' a lot and enjoy their yard. She didn't much care for the kids around my house (always seemed to rush up to us). But the second family kids she liked a lot.
Zuni passed in 2016 and I initially worried about Kali as she having been an only dog. But she was happy to sleep the day away on the bed. When she controlled the walks they became quicker affairs. At one point I brought in another hound who I thought was going to stay. But, unlike Kali, she was quite interested in all cats so we stayed with the status quo. And that was how it went until last month. At nearly seven years we had a lot of time, but at 10 1/2 there could have been at least a little more.