This is a Blog Hop that I discovered through Sugar the Golden Retriever, who created it and hosts it. {This Moment} See Beautiful happens every second Friday of the month. It invites you to create a blog post that shows how something in your day/week/month/moment was an inspiration to find beauty in a unique, profound way. The concept was created by See Beauty who has this amazing site. We thank Sugar for hosting and Lydia for See Beautiful.

 

Today I will show you a beautiful dog named Coby. He shows his beauty in the standard ways that dogs usually do. He’s adorable and beautiful. Furry and soft. Playful, affectionate. He’s a character. He’ll bark at you mischievously, and sit on a chair at the dining room table. He will lie down next to his one-year old human sister and cuddle with her.

Coby is special in another way that is tragic. He is four years old, and he has Lymphoma. He’s had it since he was three years old. In fact, he’s had it for over a year, since January 1, 2013. For those of you who know about canine Lymphoma, you know that he is special, because that is a pretty long time to survive with it. Matilda, whose blog this is, survived ten months. That is how  Coby came into our lives. They met on a “chemo day” at Blue Pearl, Brooklyn.

 

 

Both would be taken there in the morning, and spend the day. Since Matilda and Coby are big dogs, they were allowed to hang out during the day. Matilda was rather slim, as greyhounds are, so she had a big dog bed. Coby took a shine to her and would get onto the bed with her. They both seemed to look forward to “chemo day”. Blue Pearl treated them amazingly well, but we liked to say that they were in love, and looked forward to seeing each other.

 

 

 

So, Matilda is no longer with us. For those of you who have been following this blog, you are aware of what happened .  You can find the story of her passing on the blog (approximately around October 6, 2013).  Coby is still around big time . He’s been thriving, but  around Christmas 2013, he had a recurrence.  Coby has the Lymphoma back, even though he had been in remission for quite some time. This is not uncommon. When you are told by the vets that the chemo will be given for six months, they also tell you that the recurrence could be in six months. I know, that seems so unfair. Matilda got an extra four months, and Coby is still around at approximately nine extra months. But his rescue chemo is extremely costly, and his lymph nodes haven’t gone down completely. The crazy thing is that he’s eating, playing, and happy and bouncy. Right now we are simply hoping.

 

 

So, we appreciate this remarkable dog, and I thank him for being there for Matilda. We wish for permanent cure, not even just remission. It isn’t all that common, but we still want it!

 

 

The other thing is that there are some research projects going on that focus on canine cancer. We all should know about these, since it is such a huge killer of our dogs, and not only Golden Retrievers. There is one study specific to Goldens, and I will provide the link. Please, if you have a Golden, and meet the requirements, consider getting involved. Probably we all should try to donate to canine cancer research whenever we can.

http://www.gopetplan.com/fetchmagazine/fetch_18/index.html#/1/

www.morrisanimalfoundation.org

Our dogs ARE our “See Beautifuls”.