The Real Story of Max

All summer the temperature in our city was over 100 degrees. As you can tell in the photo, Max was beautiful. He had a thick coat of fur. Max was panting a lot. I decided to take him to Petco to be shaved for the summer so the heat wouldn't bother him so much. When I picked him up from Petco, I noticed a small bump on his back leg. The groomers told me to take Max to our vet. Maybe he had gotten into our roses bushes or stung by a bee. The next day I took him to our vet. She immediately knew it was bone cancer. She told me the panting indicated pain. I didn't believe her. Max was only 10. He was still eating, playing and engaging with the family. I insisted that she take a X-Ray. When she came back in I could clearly see Max did have cancer. Our vet gave us 2 options. The first was to amputate his leg that day and take him up to Washington State University for chemo and radiation. The second option was to give Max pain medication and anti-inflammatory medicine for the time he had left. She told me Max had 2 weeks to a month to live. That night I had a dream. An angel told me that I was going to write a book about how animals see the whole process of living and then crossing over. The very next day I began writing my book. Max sat next to me the entire time I was writing. The day I finished writing my book was the day Max crossed over. Max lived 1 month after I saw our vet. Two weeks later Maddie came into our lives. We have always rescued golden retrievers. This was the first poodle I ever rescued. I believe she came into our lives to help the whole family heal including Otis our other rescue dog. Maddie is in the process of being trained to be a therapy dog for Hospice. If Max had lived, we would have never been looking for another dog. Maddie will be an amazing therapy dog for Pet Partners. I gave a copy of my book to our vet. She cried when she read it. She told me that having to put down dogs is the hardest part of her job. Thank you for taking the time to read my book. Have a wonderful day. Karen Nicksich