Introducing Dakota

Dakota came to live with us in the fall of 2000. The evening I found her, I was on my way from the psychiatric hospital to the medical hospital to get money from the ATM machine in the main medical hospital lobby.

At the time, I was employed at the psychiatric hospital in (of all places) Hazard, Kentucky. Dakota was a blonde butterball of fluff. She'd been placed in a cardboard box and shoved under the back wheel of a visitors car so that when they backed their car out they would crush her. The cardboard box was soaked in urine and feces and she was soaked to her skin with urine and matted with feces. I asked the security guards to find me a clean box so I could put her in my car. Once in the car, I immediately took her to the nearest vet. Fortunately, they accepted a "walk-in", bathed her, dried her, and told me to keep her warm that night. The vet said that given the weather that night she would have frozen to death. In truth, she would have been crushed by some car before she froze to death.

Dakota was still too young to be weaned from her mother's milk so feeding her was a problem. Feeding her was nothing compared to the vet care she required. Dakota had every intestinal parasite known to dogkind. Eight months later we had begun to rid her of intestinal parasites and she'd had all her shots. Shortly thereafter she was spayed. She responded well to good medical care and proper food and she grew and grew and grew. I should have recognized that she was going to be a big girl just from the size of her puppy feet.

When I left Hazard a few months later to move back to the Midwest, she survived the car trip. The car suffered significantly as she vomited all the way. Her tummy never settled down during the whole car trip. I barely survived the car trip. She perched on the floor of the back seat, positioning her head on my right shoulder and vomited down the right side of my sweater the entire way home. Once home, she settled right in.

The entire neighborhood fell in love with her. Our next door neighbor (the man with the very tidy yard) was observed sneaking her a half dozen donuts one morning. Dakota has never forgotten those donuts and her love for him has never wavered. As a general rule, she fears men with the exception of our next door neighbor and Eric. Dakota is an odd looking dog. We have never figured out her lineage. She's a blonde with a double coat, one brown eye and one ice blue eye. He blue eye is blue with a black pupil. The photograph makes it look like she has a red eye, but that's an error of the photo that I don't know how to fix.

We've had her seven years now and she has won our hearts. Last fall, she was diagnosed with cancer. Her chemotherapy was administered every other week for six months. She was remarkably cooperative with treatment. She literally would sprawl on the table and stretch out her front leg and willingly permit the vet to administer the lengthy sessions of medication. While she was on the chemotherapy she was also given Prednisone and experience significant weight gain. But, the vet said let her eat what she wanted and we'd worry about a diet once she survived the cancer. Her booty became quite substantial as she was eating five 23 ounce cans of Pedigree a day. Once off the chemo and off the Prednisone, she cut herself back to two 13 ounce cans of Pedigree a day and slimmed back down to about 65 pounds. Once off the chemo, we were also able to get a truly dreadful ear infection under control. I think she hated having her ears flushed weekly and the ear medication daily more than she hated the chemo.

We don't say Dakota is free of cancer because the unfortunate part of cancer is that it comes back. We're afraid to say she's cancer free. Right now, she's doing well and seems as happy and content as a dog can be.

We are so pleased that we have been given the opportunity to serve as a steward for her life.