Kaley Cuoco is honoring her late dog Shirley.
On Sunday, Nov. 24, the actress opened up about the story behind rehoming Shirley, who recently died of cancer, revealing in an Instagram Reel that Shirley had to leave her home after having fights with her fiancé Tom Pelphrey’s pup.
“Most of you know I had [Shirley] for many, many, many years,” said Cuoco, 38. “All of a sudden, you kind of stopped seeing her, and I started to get a lot of questions as to where she was, because it’s very unlike me to just stop posting about a dog that I’ve had since she was 6 weeks old.”
Becoming emotional, the Based on a True Story actress — who shares 19-month-old daughter Matilda with Pelphrey, 42 — added, “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,” she continued, “and he moved across the country with his beautiful German Shepherd, Blue, a couple years ago, unfortunately, Blue and Shirley started getting into some mega fights.”
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Cuoco added that Shirley was “determined to kill” Blue, adding that she also fought with other dogs, except Norman, whom she grew up with and acted as “the mob boss.”
The longtime animal lover went on to say that Shirley was “such a people dog” who loved children and families. However, due to Cuoco having a lot of dogs, the Big Bang Theory alum began to fear Shirley would hurt another animal.
She continued that they made the difficult decision after realizing Shirley couldn’t live in their home “with how she was behaving.”
“I loved her so much, but I was really scared,” Cuoco said. “I didn’t want something really bad to happen or possibly a person accidentally be there and get hurt.”
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Kaley Cuoco/Instagram
Cuoco revealed that her pet handler Tony and his wife Angie offered to help care for Shirley a couple of years ago and have “had her ever since.”
She added as her voice began to shake, “They have loved her so so much, and it was an excruciating decision.”
Revealing the heartbreaking news of Shirley’s death, the Flight Attendant actress added, “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 said, as tears fell. “And I just wanted to share her story and what we had to do.”
She concluded by giving her appreciation to Tony and Angie for taking care of Shirley before adding that she wanted to tell everyone how amazing the late dog was, writing in her caption, “🐾 In honor of my Shirley 🐾 @ohnorman ♥️.”
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