Gus's surgery

A plea from Gus, Northwood Stables official “Ambassador of Joy”

Calling all incredibly kind-hearted, larger-than-life, pet-loving guardian angels… I need your help keeping CANCER’S ICKIE UGLINESS out of my life.

I’m not really good at “asking” for things from humans. At 3-years old, I consider myself more of a professional beggar when it comes to getting my way with some of life’s most spectacular delights such as cherry Twizzlers, belly rubs, long ear scratches, car rides and endless ball throwing.   

However, judging by the worried looks on my humans’ faces and the endless tears shed by my little girl who considers me to be her best friend, it’s time for me to try my paw at asking for your help in chasing cancer out of my life.

You see, as the Ambassador of Joy at our farm, I’m responsible for making all my humans laugh, chasing the barn kitties, running through ALL the flowerbeds, shedding handfuls of fur all over sofa and cars, drooling all over everything,  rummaging through the trash, eating the occasional horse poo, sniffing out critters in the hay, loving on every little girl in sight and most importantly — reminding those humans who sometimes tend forget the magic of a soft nuzzle from my warm nose can fix just about anything. Well, almost anything…but cancer.

My vet says I have a very aggressive type in my shoulder that’s going to be pretty hard to beat. But as I always say, you can’t keep a good dog down!  I’ve already licked one big surgery to remove a goopy mass of crappy cancer from my clavicle, but in a few months, it came right back — bigger and badder than before.

After a trip to North Carolina State University’s vet school and a bunch of really icky, sticky tests with lots of needles, the doctors there determined my big, brown fur-body was free of that nasty ol’ cancer everywhere but my shoulder.

So, then I was off for another really ouchy-ouch surgery from a pretty dog-gone amazing orthopedic surgeon in Knoxville, TN who removed every tennie-weenie speck of the remaining tumor, before I can undergo chemotherapy.

My beautiful grandmamma Kelly — who believes God is good and can do awesome things — is praying really, really, really hard for a miracle to help her pay for the remainder of my treatment. She asked me to please stick around on this earth long enough to see my dad get married and her first grandbaby be born. Oh, and chase the barn cat some more. Not really, I just threw that part in.

All I need is 5000 of the world’s most bestest people on EARTH to give a $1 (or more ) to pay for more treatments and vet bills. And if you can’t afford to give money, would you please pray for my healing? After all, Dog is GOD spelled backwards.

Love, licks, wags and wonders,

Gus