reflected on her decision to rehome her dog Shirley after the pet’s death.
“Most of you know I had [Shirley] for many, many, many years,” Cuoco, 38, said in an Instagram video on Sunday, November 24. “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.”
Cuoco got emotional as she discussed how Shirley’s fights with her fiancé ’s dog led to the rehoming.
“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, moved across the country with his beautiful German Shepherd, Blue,” she continued. “A couple years ago, unfortunately, Blue and Shirley started getting into some mega fights.”
Cuoco said Shirley was “determined to kill” Blue. Out of an abundance of caution, Cuoco made the difficult choice to rehome Shirley due to “how she was behaving.”
“I loved her so much, but I was really scared. I didn’t want something really bad to happen or possibly a person accidentally be there and get hurt,” she noted about her pet handler and his wife taking care of Shirley for her. “They have loved her so so much, and it was an excruciating decision.”
Shirley recently died following a battle with “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 through tears. “And I just wanted to share her story and what we had to do.”
Cuoco, who shares 19-month-old daughter Matilda with Pelphrey, 42, has been a lifelong animal lover.
“I’m not allowed to say how many I have, because I am afraid they will come knocking, saying that it’s an illegal amount,” she joked to Variety in February 2021 about having multiple dogs and horses.
The actress spoke to Us Weekly in 2016 about how finding a man who “loves dogs” was No. 1 on her checklist. Cuoco found that partner in Pelphrey, whom she got engaged to in August after more than two years of dating.
