Horanyi Family: Remembering Bailey

Coonhounds are known to be incessant nesters

I mentioned we lost good dog Bailey in the last post, but I wanted to share a few more memories of him. He really was a very special dog. I got him in fall of 2002 from someone we used to work with at IHOP. I stopped by there after seeing her in the parking lot one day and she told me about him. Someone had dropped off a litter of puppies at her home out in the country and he did not look like the rest. They called him "Baby." We named him Bailey because it sounded a little like that and was on a list of names for hunting dogs. He was very timid and it took him a long time to get used to us. It took Simon a long time to get used to him, though he took to Simon immediately and always followed his lead.

Bailey was a creature of habit and always stood to the right of Simon when going for a walk. After Simon passed on and we adopted Sasha, he kept to the right of her. He always played the assistant role and would never eat his food first. He always waited on Simon to eat. Then he waited on Sasha when she came along. One day, when Bailey had not been eating well, I confronted Sasha about eating Bailey's food. She hid in a corner (as much as a big German Shepherd can hide).

Here are a few pictures of Bailey. I've heard people say that you always take a lot of pictures of your first child but not so many of the ones that come after. That's kind of what happened with Simon and Bailey. We had a lot of puppy pictures of Simon. Maybe one of Bailey, and it is on an old computer. But I can safely say he looked just the same, only smaller. He never did change much. We always called him our puppy, and he was. Our puppy forever.