The following is our beautiful, ever so faithful, loving dog, Frisco’s story………

Frisco lived with us in Littleton, Colorado, and was a beautiful Flat-Coat Retriever who sustained the first 3 years of her life with an anonymous owner unknown to us. I personally found her one cold January night. We tried to find out whom had lost her, but no one would respond and she desperately needed a home. She
looked at us constantly.... with a begging heart and big beautiful brown eyes as if to say “Please take care of me, I promise I’ll be good if you’ll only feed me and give me shelter”.

Our hearts had turned and we couldn’t resist her so she became our family. We had the luxury of becoming her caregivers for the next 7 years. Frisco turned out to be the best dog we had ever owned. She had gotten me through some pretty rough times in my life and I cannot thank her enough for being there for me. Best of all she got to really be the caretaker, caressor, and Mother of our new puppy that we had gotten in time. Frisco showed him the ropes daily and had a wonderful companion dog-friend. They were best friends and couldn’t really part. Frisco got to attend doggy school and learned commands extremely well. She could perform the “Finish” command and was an excellent companion to our 4 year old. Frisco never had destroyed one thing in the house
and loved to give you the biggest kisses.

I couldn’t believe she was real and she was ours!!!!

One day... being the protectful and careful owners that I thought we were, we brought her to her doom on a summer’s day in 2002. We had her initial physical exam performed and as my vet always requires.... the heartworm blood draw to see if she’s got Heartworm (NOT in Colorado). The odds are so low here in Colorado and especially with poor Frisco as she never goes anywhere but home sweet home. Anyway the vet had mentioned and “Oh by the way we have this new shot that lasts 6 months for heartworm”. At the time I had one dog out in the car, and one child in with me on this vet appointment. My intuition said “She will be a guinea pig". The conversation progressed on that the shot was cheaper than the darn chewables. I am so sad for this moment and only wish I could turn back time. We went ahead with it. To our dismay she progressively began to feel bad ie. eating more grass, rapid changes in her becoming bloated. I thought she was getting fat and needed a lot more exercise. Then one day.... she could barely walk with me and would just stop. I didn’t understand what was going on. Frisco started to look very lethargic and one night we took her in to a 24-hour emergency. It was 2 am in the morning when the Doctor called and said she has a huge lump on her spleen and we need to remove it or she will bleed to death. Supposedly she had been bleeding and I had no idea for how long. I can only surmise that it had been for about a week. If I could have only been more observant and taken her in earlier, just maybe there might have been a fleeting chance that I could have saved her life.

It was confirmed that Frisco had a himangeomasarcoma and without surgery she would die right away. With surgery she may have 6 weeks to 3 months to live. CANCER was staring at us. We reasearched to the hilt on the Internet and profoundly found a trial program for her to enter if she was clean of cancer and passed all of the tests. Well she did with flying colors.

This was a dog that had never been sick and was extremely healthy. We immediately got her into a program and pursued cancer treatment. She underwent cancer therapy all summer. It wasn’t easy... but she was a real trooper and put up with it, as always trusting in us that she would one day feel better and with a little rest could get back on her feet and play again. At the end of therapy, we were told from X-rays that she was in remission. We were happy through the week-end. I always felt deep inside that we needed to go a step further because I didn’t feel like it was over. It turns out that she had lesions on her liver that were visible from the first time we brought her into the emergency. I believe those probably remained and spread. This parvo shot she got was a semi-synthetic. Anytime you take a synthetic drug, your body may not be able to dispell it and cells begin to go awry.

The following week I came home and found her collapsed in the yard with the sun beating down on her beautiful black coat. It must have been a few hours. Frisco did all she could do to drag herself outside and had excrement all over her. I cleaned her up, dragged her into the shade and just lost it.

We brought her back to the clinic that evening. They wanted to keep her overnight to run tests, X-rays etc. They were astonished after telling us she was in re-mission. The following morning it had been confirmed that the cancer was not in re-mission, and in fact it had spread.

They handed her back to us, and said "We’re sorry but we cannot do anything more for her. Frisco will die in about 1-3 days." My heart dropped.

We rushed her to my Homeopathic vet and started her immediately on a treatment that he had designed for cancer as she spent the next 6 grueling nights at his compound. Through daily visits and pep talks, and taking her other companion to visit her, she didn’t look like she felt very good.

Frisco was sad, getting up and walking became very hard. She fought as much as she could. Frisco hadn’t even eaten that well since the last chemo treatment. They fell in love with her at that office. Well after 6 nights there, I was getting worried and wanted to take her home to live out her time with us. The vet said ok and taught us how to administer 5-6 shots daily. We did this faithfully. Frisco couldn’t walk or even sit up at this point. I fed her baby oatmeal through a syringe to keep her alive so she would have something in her stomach. Prayed a lot, cried a lot and couldn’t believe the faith she had in us. We held the tears back through all of this in front of her so she would believe that she was going to make it. That is probably why she hung on soooo long. She believed she was going to get better.

We carried her into the house and made a comfy home on a big pillow and there she remained for the next 5 nights. Night 4 & 5 were very scary. I called the vet at 2 & 3 AM because her breathing became very labored. Her eyes showed that she was very scared. I was in constant communication with the vet. I learned how to administer an IV because she needed it. She had 2 full bags of IV. Frisco was very strong in her hind quarters because I tugged on her leg a bit and she pulled it right back in as if she had a lot of strength in that leg. She also loved to eat. Since she wasn’t eating I brought some fish over to her to see if she would try it and she even ran her tongue across her lips as if to tell me "I love fish too but I cannot eat it for fear of what is happening inside of my body".

Then Monday came, August 18, 2003.
It was my son’s first day of pre-school and I had to take him for an orientation. I rushed out of there because I couldn’t leave Frisco for very long for fear of her dying. We came home, my 4-year old son ran into the house and shouted “Mom Frisco vomited”. I looked at her and immediately said “Oh Frisco, I’m so sorry for leaving you”. I cleaned up and noticed her eyes began rolling from side-to-side. I didn’t think about it, but she must have been starting to die. I’m not even sure if she was cognizant. I was so immune in hardening myself and just working all the issues that I didn’t have much time to think. Frisco had a movement and I thought, well gee this is a good thing. Then her stomach began to roll, her tongue came out of her mouth as if she was gasping for air; between looking at her stomach and mouth it really was very, very scary. I didn’t know who to call, I didn’t have time, she was dieing before my eyes. I thought I should give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, pump her heart, then I felt deep down I might just pro-long it, I called my husband. I was hysterical, I was crying and frantic, my son was crying. My husband said just hold her tight and tell her that you love her. Her eyes began to roll back and you could see death creeping up from the tail end on up. It was heart-wrenching. Her tongue started rolling out as if gasping for air. I started to pump her stomach and then I stopped. If I had tried to keep her alive, it probably wouldn’t be an ideal situation. So I let death come in at 12:15 PM on that Monday morning.

All I could do was say “Frisco I love you I love you” and hold her tight. She slipped away without a wimper or a moan or a sound in the quiet of that Monday afternoon August 18, 2003……

We deeply miss her but anticipate meeting her again………
June