The Big Bang Theory alum has a lot of animals at her ranch north of LA, which has included 25 horses and a large number of dogs (at least six at times).

“Obviously, I rescue dogs, and everyone knows that about me, but I’ve expanded to farm animals and even Thoroughbreds and horses off the track,” she said of the ranch earlier this year. “Anything with four legs is welcome here. We don’t turn anyone away. It’s become this magical place.”

In a new Instagram reel, Kaley began, “There’s something that’s been weighing on me that I think I’m ready to share now, especially now that I run my own dog care company, Oh Norman! I think it’s important to be honest about everything animal-related.”

Kaley then turned her attention to Shirley, saying, “Most of you know I had her for many, many, many years, and all of a sudden, you stopped seeing her.

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 six weeks old.”

However, things changed when her fiancé and father of her child, Tom Pelphrey, moved in with his German Shepherd named Blue a few years ago.

“Unfortunately, Blue and Shirley started getting into some mega fights. Shirley was determined to kill him. It was very scary. She’d gotten in fights with other dogs; the only dog she didn’t get in a fight with was Norman,” she recalled, referring to her former dog and the namesake of her company.

Noting that Shirley was more of a “people dog,” Kaley continued, “We bring many dogs into our home, and I started to get worried that she would hurt another animal. And I needed to make a very, very difficult decision.”

Appearing emotional, the actor added, “She just could not live with us, with 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 to accidentally be there and get hurt.”