Goodbye, Good And Faithful Dog + Elsa Takes Aim + Bird Mystery

ACROSS AMERICA — Saying goodbye to a beloved family pet is never easy, even when their bodies began betraying them and each breath is a painful labor.

“There’s nothing that prepares you, really, for the loss of a dog,” writes Patch’s Lisa Finn writes of Hachi’s death on the 4th of July. “Because really, the love shared with a dog is like nothing else, a bond that I have to believe stretches far past this lifetime.”

Hachi was a senior dog Finn adopted at a North Fork, New York, animal shelter. He was found wandering alone on a road, abandoned.

“He walked with a funny, bow-legged strut, and it seemed to me that someone, at some point in his life, had hurt him,” Finn wrote “Not just because of his unsteady gait. But because when I first adopted him, if I went to pet him too quickly, he’d flinch. Expecting, I suppose, the worst.

“From the first, I fell in love with those big brown eyes. No matter what he'd been through or where he'd come from, those eyes were filled with so much love, so much hope. So much trust.” Read the full story on North Fork Patch.

Florida Condo Demolished

Three more bodies were found after the remaining portion of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Florida, was demolished Sunday night, allowing “full search-and-resuce mode” to resume, Mayor Daniela Levine Cava said.

The death toll from the June 24 partial collapse now stands at 27, with 118 people still missing. Another 191 people have been accounted for.

“To collapse an entire apartment building is a devastating decision and the demolition was in no way a decision that I made lightly," the mayor said. "Bringing the building down in a controlled manner was critical to expanding our scope of search. Truly, we could not continue without bringing this building down." Read the full story on Miami Patch.

More Reads

Elsa Takes Aim At Florida: The National Hurricane Center warned residents of Florida’s west coast to prepare for life-threatening storm surge from Tropical Storm Elsa. Storm surge of 33 to 5 feet above high tide is expected in parts of Florida and Georgia Tuesday and Wednesday, via Tampa Patch.

Don’t Feed The Birds: Pennsylvanians are being asked not to feed birds and filling bird baths because of a mysterious avian ailment that is making them sick and, in some cases, killing them. At least 70 songbirds have become sick or died in 27 of the state’s 67 counties, via Pittsburgh Patch.

Texans And The 4th Of July (ICYMI): Growing up on the Texas border in El Paso gives you a unique perspective about America, via Dallas Patch

Quotable

“She suffered and was marginalized. Even in death, she could not escape her tormentors who harassed her memory in the most despicable and deplorable of ways during her funeral.”

— Erin Popolo, who took her daughter’s ashes to the stage to accept the teen’s high school diploma

Trending Across Patch

• 2 Teens Missing Since Thursday In National Forest, via Los Angeles Patch
• Golf Course Shooter Remains At Large, Unidentified, via Kennesaw Patch
• Chicken Recall: Tyson Recalls 8 Million Pounds Of Food, via Cleveland Patch
• Olympian Aly Raisman’s Dog Missing After Being Spooked By Fireworks, via Boston Patch
• Joey Chestnut Wins Another Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, via Boston Patch