Cancer Sucks

Gracie and Lily, 2011

This is Gracie's BFF from puppyhood. We met Lily and her mom, Vicky, at the dog park when Gracie was 6 months old, Lily about 8 months old. She is a fox hound mix of some sort. When Vicky rescued the pup, she thought Lily would be a beagle. Yeah, no. Although in all fairness to Vicky, I did see some of Lily's puppy photos, and she truly did look like she had beagle mix in her genes.

As Lily grew into adulthood, she had some aggression issues, so Vicky stopped bringing her to the dog park. Her husband devised a long, fenced run around their property that gave Lily and her adopted brother, Declan, lots of room to run. But we did on occasion see them at Puppy Playground, the dog daycare we both use. And that is where I learned, yesterday, that this beautiful dog has a malignant tumor in a leg muscle. The prognosis is not good.

This breaks my heart. Lily is now limping, badly, and on meds to take down the pain. But my memories are in 2009, 2010, and 2011 of Lily, Gracie, and Sarge running for hours at the dog park, chasing balls, playing tag and just being great dogs.

Some comforting thoughts: Lily was raised and held with love her entire life after being adopted. She had the best vet care, the best food, toys, whatever she needed that her mom could give her. And she had dog buddies that tolerated her odd behavior, at times. Gracie was one of them. The other was Sarge. He was so much shorter than Lily, but she would bend those long legs to get to his level, kiss his nose, and then back off as he snapped at her. We think Sarge was gay. Lily didn't care.

Memories are wonderful. But cancer still sucks.
Linda