Kaley Cuoco, known for her role as Penny on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, has shared why her dog Shirley is missing from her social media presence. Cuoco, who has been adopting animals for many years, expressed her passion for dogs.
The 38-year-old actress disclosed that she had to make the ‘devastating’ decision to re-home Shirley after becoming ‘scared’ for the dog’s safety and those around her.
On Monday (November 25), Cuoco took to Instagram to post a video where she spoke about something that had been ‘weighing on [her] mind’.
Cuoco emphasized the importance of being ‘honest’, especially due to her involvement with animals, and revealed the story of her dog Shirley.
“I wanted to talk about a little dog named Shirley. Most of you know I had her for many, many, many years and all of a sudden you stopped seeing her and I started to get a lot of questions as to where she was, because it’s very unlike me to stop posting about a dog that I’d had since she was six weeks old.”
Cuoco went on: “So, long story short, she’s a very special dog to me – as you all know. And when the love of my life came into my life, Tom, who is also a mega dog lover, and he moved across the country with his beautiful German Shepherd, Blue, a couple of years ago, unfortunately Blue and Shirley started getting into some fights.”
“[…] And it was very scary, she got in fights with other dogs. […] And Shirley had gotten in other dog fights before and it really scared me and the problem with it is she’s such a people dog, loves people, loves kids, loves families – I cherished that dog.”
Cuoco explained the challenge of introducing new dogs into their home, as she was worried Shirley might harm another animal, leading to a very hard decision that she felt was important to share.
Eventually, Cuoco said they decided Shirley should not live with them ‘because of how she was behaving’.
“I loved her so much but I was really scared. And I didn’t want something really bad to happen or possibly a person accidentally be there and get hurt,” she added.
Shirley was subsequently taken in by a pet handler that Cuoco knows, where she received much love.
“It was an excruciating decision for me. I’ve never had to – I would never say give her up – but place a dog elsewhere, I always knew I could take care of them. But this was for the safety of Shirley herself and I didn’t want her to end up in a home,” Cuoco said.
The decision sparked mixed reactions on social media.
One Twitter user commented: “You should be hurt and ashamed! You rehomed Shirley for a man! Poor thing. She didn’t know why you didn’t love her anymore. You are NOT an animal lover.”
Another user supported Cuoco, saying: “Sometimes you gotta make hard choices with pets even if it breaks your heart. I had to rehome my cat last year and I still think about her every day.”
Cuoco later revealed the sad news that Shirley had passed away.
“So she’s been living the life out on the most beautiful farm […] for years,” she continued. “I did just receive news she has passed. She got a very aggressive bone cancer that came on very quickly. She was almost 14 years old which is an unbelievable life for a dog.”
Cuoco expressed her devastation over losing Shirley and used the moment to honestly share her story and thank the handlers for providing Shirley with such a wonderful end to her life.
She concluded: “I thought I’d be really judged for this decision and I was really afraid to talk about it. […] It was a serious decision that needed to be made as a family and I think we did the right thing.”
“I thought I owed it to the animal community, to myself but mostly to Shirley to tell everyone how amazing she was.”