Keeva
My dog was lean and strong from swimming, running and walking long distances. Her fur–thick, soft and golden–glistened in the sun. She slept half on and half off her bed near mine. At 6:30 each morning, her wet nose nuzzled me awake. Keeva loved snow and cold weather. She pounced on disappearing snowballs. She chased after balls on the icy beach or plunged after them into the frigid sea. The ocean, a lake or swimming pool all beckoned to her.
Keeva died at age eleven from a hemangioma-sarcoma. My husband had died five years before, and now my dog. Keeva’s cancer appeared on her left hind paw. She had surgery twice, followed by antibiotics, a bandage and a bootie. For a while the tumors seemed quiet, but tthey returned with increasing frequency. When no medical inervention seemed to work, I let Keeva care for her paw herself. She licked it continuouslty. To my amazement, and to that of her veterinarians, the lesion in her paw dried and scabbed. But eventually the tumor returned.