Yoda is my first dog as an adult.  The first dog who is solely my responsibility.  About a year and a half after our family dog, who lived 17 years, had to be put to sleep, before I had a home and job conducive to getting another dog.  Wow, that was only a year and a half?  My doglessness felt so much longer.  But to help deal with that hole, I volunteered to walk dogs at the local Humane Society and that's how I found Yoda.

Yoda is a probable doberman mix.  He has the coloring of a chocolate lab, only with higher white socks and a bigger star on his chest than I've ever seen on a lab.  He was almost 3 when I got him and is almost 6 now.  (I hope to send in tripawd pictures pretty soon, but his avatar comes across pretty well).  He is sooooo mellow.  To the point of being anti-social almost.  The anti-socialness though was likely due to neglect in his early life.  It was his second time being surrendered to the Humane Society when I got him.  He has a “knot” in his tail, and a rib that sticks out a little on one side, which his vet said looked to be previous injuries.  His Humane Society records said something about him being left a dog park.  And once we ran into a vet who recognized Yoda and told me she treated him at the Humane Society because he had been just “skin and bones” when he was brought in.  The thought made me so mad!

Early on I wasn't sure if Yoda and I were bonding or not.  Our family dog had been so effusive and so adored getting attention, but Yoda almost seemed to tolerate attention rather than enjoy it.  After I'd had him only 3 weeks, my dad came by to walk Yoda for me as a favor while I was at work one day, but there was a mishap with the leash and Yoda took off!  I searched, but it was hours after by the time I was able to leave work, and my dad had searched right after it happened, so Yoda could have been long long gone.  I finally convinced myself to go home and sleep on the couch by the window until I could take more action in the morning.  About 12 hours after my dad lost him, I woke up and looked out the window (for like the 15th time) and there he was standing outside the fence!  My front yard is fenced in, including in front of the driveway, but the driveway gate was wide open.  But Yoda was standing by the little gate to the walk that goes up to the front door, as if waiting for permission.  Well I sure gave it and he came running in!  I stopped worrying whether or not we were bonded after that and gradually he showed more affection and a love of belly rubs.

A few months ago Yoda started limping at the dog park.  The ground was fairly muddy and uneven after the thaw, so I thought he could have easily pulled or strained something and by the next day it was gone.  During the next trip to the park, the same thing happened though and eventually the limp lasted days and so I took him in.  His vet guessed tendonitis or a calcification in his shoulder and put him on Rimadyl and restricted his exercise and that was suppose to clear it all up.  The first time the limp did show a lot of improvement, but then it came back and a calcification did show up in an x-ray, but the limp slowly continued to get worse despite the continued Rimadyl and restricted exercise.  This all lasted about 2 months.  The night before I was to take Yoda in for more extensive x-rays than he had gotten so far, he intently licked the area where his tumor would be found, on his right radius.

Yoda's vet told me he probably had 2 months tops.  They could refer me to the UW Vet school, but the treatments they could offer might not be worth it to me.  Another of the vets who sometimes sees Yoda told me that amputation might be a possibility, but that it's a very painful procedure and Yoda was already in a lot of pain.  Now this sounded strange to me, because before Yoda even started limping, I had seen a special on PBS about people and their dogs.  That's right, I saw Jerry and his pawrents!  So, though trying not to get my hopes too high, I asked to be referred to the UW Vet school to see what they had to say.  They confirmed what I remembered from that program – hopping on three legs is better than limping on four!   And, with chemo, Yoda could live a year with a high quality of life, maybe even two.  After two awful months of watching Yoda limp on four legs and have to give up playing ball and going to the dog parks – it was a no brainer!

Now, when I got the bad news from Yoda's regular vet, I didn't tell any of my friends or co-workers.  I didn't want to talk about it until I knew what I was going to do.  The result was, I think, I sounded a little too happy when I did start telling people.  To them it was: “Yoda has cancer and has to have his leg amputated and get chemo.”  To me it was: “Yoda gets to lose his limp and go to the park and play ball again instead of having to be put to sleep in 2 months or less!”  I did my best to explain when they looked at me funny.

Yoda's front right leg was amputated on June 5th and he has been doing great so far!  Especially since he got those heavy-duty painkillers out of his system.  He recently had his first bloodwork following his first chemo and everything came back good.  He didn't show any signs of side effects to the chemo either.

Yoda, the-borderline-antisocial dog, is suddenly very into visiting with the neighbors!  It used to be, when we'd go for walks, if neighbors wanted to say hi and pet him, he'd be like, “Ok, fine, I'll stand here for a little bit, they can pet me or whatever, but we have a walk to finish!”  Now he nearly drags me over to any neighbor who shows interest in saying hi and he even looks at the person and wants to sniff their faces (he doesn't lick) and swing his butt around for their convenience to give him a good scratch in his favorite spot.  This new occupation of Yoda's, so far, has brought out a lot of sharing of stories about ill or passed pets or even illl or passed human family.  Sad stuff, but seeing Yoda perform this therapy for people fills me with enough pride and happiness to balance out the sad.

Yoda's latest conquest as a tripawd: successfully devouring a rawhide chip one-pawed!