People have been asking about Emma, here getting ready to take a swim in the river last summer (with Lucy standing guard in the background).The tumor under her tongue, which looked like a little round red ball, was indeed cancerous - the specialist says prognosis "guarded," as it's the type of cancer that spreads and apparently can pop up just about anywhere. But she's been loving her high-protein anti-cancer diet and her energy has returned and her fur stopped falling out, so I'm being cautiously optimistic.
At 6 weeks old she was 3 1/2 pounds - severely malnourished, with just about every type of worm and parasite known to canines. She fit down the sleeve of my jacket, lying on my arm with her head poking out the arm hole. She may not make it through the weekend, said the vet. I bought baby food and canned catfood, and force-fed her for what seemed like forever. Finally she took wobbly little steps toward her food bowl, and I cried when she ate her first bites of solid food. And then she gained weight at the rate of 2 pounds a week, until she hit 50 pounds. And never looked back.
She was the favorite of the summer kids, the nephew and the exchange students and other people's kids who had nowhere to go, especially the needy and neglected ones, loving to snuggle up next to them, splash through puddles, sleep for hours in the sunshine. Now 12 1/2, she still has her happy walk, bouncy like a puppy, trotting to show you one of her favorite soft toys, and she still cries when happiness when you walk in the door.
Last summer she learned to swim - she watched the other dogs swimming and paced, frustrated, back and forth on the rocks, and once she made up her mind to take the plunge, off she went, unstoppable, determined, swimming to the other side of the lake.
It has been a splendid life, well lived, full of love given and received.
Would that most people lived so well.
I'm hoping that she makes it to summer, so she can swim to the other side of the river once again.
2 comments:
This such a sweet post about Emma. I love that dog. If she were human the phrase "she has no guile" would apply to her!
Sara--as you may well know from my blog, my beagle Seamus also had cancer. He was only 2 at the time. But he beat all odds and is doing great. I'll hope for the same for Emma. Seamus also did the anti-cancer all protein diet, which he loved in part but as his favorite food is toast (hard to believe, but true) there were difficulties. He now gets toast with me in the morning, since he's 3 dog years and 21 human years in remission!
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