It’s May and Pet Cancer Awareness Month.
Thankfully, Buzz continues to show zero signs of any distress from his mast cell cancer, and we are heading full steam ahead showing Memorial Day weekend and the first weekend in June — while fine tuning things as I count down to the Rally National Championships on June 16-17.
Plus, he will be a participant in a new cancer study through Lane Animal Hospital, but more on that soon.
First, I need to circle back to April.
Buzz added three new “bests” to his long list of accomplishments, but even more exciting for me, he logged another 300 day in the Rally ring, marking his return to competition since October, 2022.
His “perfect day” took place on April 7, and marked the seventh time in Buzz’s illustrious Rally career when he scored 100 in all three classes — Master, Excellent and Advanced. Did I mention is was also Good Friday?
But before I continue forward, let me take a moment to step way back in time.
On April 27, 1013, Buzz and I began our journey together when I drove to the other side of Toronto to pick him up to bring him back to his forever home in Chelsea.
He didn’t make the trip here alone, though, I also brought his brother, Traveler, and the two had a final sleepover before his new owner from Illinois came to pick him up the next day.
As such, April has always been a special month in this household; however, April 2023 will go down in our history together as an especially memorable one.
On April 15-16, Buzz was chosen as the Best in Show Veteran in three out of four United Kennel Club shows in which he was entered. And, he was the Reserve Best in Show in the fourth. This marked his first time showing as a veteran in conformation – a class for dogs older than 7 years old. Not a bad start and finish to his UKC conformation pretty dog “career.”
We’d actually entered the shows to try and build “competition wins” for Aidan’s brother Dare, and on that front, we were quite successful as well.
Dare beat Aidan three out of the four times that they showed against each other.
So, now both brothers are United Kennel Club champions.
And truth be told, Aidan didn’t care that he lost to his brother, and neither did I. He was more excited to be able to play with him outside the ring, and I was happy that both brothers earned their championships in UKC before they were 9 months old.
Unfortunately, Buzz brought home something not so fun from these shows – a virus of some sort, which left him coughing horribly, and feeling really, really crummy for weeks. So, he was “quarantined” and taking three types of meds twice a day, plus his antihistamine. With his compromised immune system, it took more than a week for him to finally turn the corner and stop hacking.
Since I spent a lot of time observing him, I noticed more and more white hairs appearing on 10-plus-year-old muzzle. At first, I was worried thinking it was a result of his cancer, but now I’m thinking that each new white hair means he’s just getting more distinguished and definitely more learned.
