“We’re not getting the Rottweiler,” I said as we drove to the SPCA a dozen years ago. But we walked all four dogs available for adoption, and Roxy the Rottweiler was the one who lick, lick, licked our arms and was so immediately gentle that I said, “This is the one.”

Our daughter, Anastasia, hesitated at first. And admittedly, Roxy sent both her and her brother Max flying through the air–they were too small to hold back a big dog if a squirrel came by. But they grew, and Roxy listens a bit better.

People advise you to gather around the dinner table. Our family isn’t good at that. But we do gather around our dogs. We pet them, we laugh at them, we tell them how good they are, we send pictures of them looking cute or derpy. When Max got depressed without his friends during COVID, or Anastasia retreats too long to her room, or I come home exhausted after a long ER shift, Roxy to the rescue!

Roxy has been diagnosed with an aggressive mast cell tumour. She had a low grade mast cell tumour that was excised in January, but I felt a lump close to the scar August 29th. She had surgery September 18th, but despite 1 cm margins, the ear side wasn’t clear. And I could feel the tumour growing daily preop.

Roxy’s going to her first oncology appointment on Tuesday for staging (ultrasound and biopsies), which happens to be her 13th birthday.

We’ll try to treat her as thoroughly yet as compassionately as we can, meaning that we want to eradicate cancer, but not at the cost of pointless suffering.

In the meantime, we’ve cancelled our trip to Italy to be with her while her life is near-normal. Roxy’s bright, she loves to eat (human food and treats, not dog food) and explore. She’s not in any pain. Today she met new friends who were worried that she’d fall down the stairs in their garage, but Roxy has excellent balance and is both smart and wise.

Please keep Roxy in her thoughts. We love, love, love our big girl.