STOP CANCER FUREVER PLEDGE

My sweet soul-mate, JB survived being left in a barn when his mama was killed, getting lost in a forest when he jumped ou t of the car when we got him home, and mauled by a pit bull which almost cost him his leg....through all this he was sweet to eveeryone....shared his toys with his brother and sister cats and dog...and came running with his limp every time I opened the door....how I love love love him...and how I miss him...every day...I talk to my baby boy every day...He only had 6 years on this plain befor that wretched disease took him from us....he was so very brave....til the end while I held him as he crossed the Rainbow Bridge....my sweet, loving baby boy....I love u JB.....xo tears

I made my donation because I lost my 10 1/2 year-old Golden, Sadie, to hemangiosarcoma 6 years ago. Sadie was my first Golden Retriever and my 2 daughters' first dog. Sadie was in perfect health and then one day she just collapsed. I was at work, so my daughter rushed Sadie to our vet and they knew what it was right away. My daughter called me hysterical saying Sadie had cancer and we MUST take her to Blue Pearl. We were beyond devastated! We met with the oncologist and surgeon and they explained what she had, that she was not in any pain and what our options were:

1. Do nothing and she would have maybe a week to live...

2. Remove her spleen and she might have a month or 2 to live...

3. Remove her spleen and do chemo (which can be expensive they said) and maybe she would have 4 - 6 months to live.

After consulting with our vet, and researching with Dr. Google and some breeders, we as a family decided to go with option three -- we were not ready to let her go (the tears are beginning as I write this). The surgery and chemo went well (glad I had pet insurance). She healed very quickly; one would never know she was sick and living on borrowed time. And then, BOOM it came back. Because we elected to do the surgery and chemo, we had Sadie for another 6 months and she lived to be 10 1/2! We had a vet who specializes in at home euthanasia come to the house and help Sadie pass over to the Rainbow Bridge, in her bed surrounded by her family each holding a paw. This was the hardest thing I've ever had to do..

I waited a year before getting another Golden who we named Josie (after the Steely Dan song). People asked me, "why would you get another Golden when you know what their health concerns are and that this can happen again.?" I said, "simple, because I love the breed! and if you had a Golden Retriever you would understand."

I truly hope that your foundation, other foundations and teams of doctors and scientists can find ways for early detection of this "silent killer," reliable genetic testing and maybe even a cure. Sadie was a big part of our family and we still miss her to this day!

On behalf of my family and all pet owners, THANK YOU for what you do in helping create a better quality of life for our pets.

Tom

Because of his legacy.

Because of the story of a client Peter who was so attached to his dog(bingo).The scene happened at zonal veterinary clinic Birnin kebbi,kebbi state Nigeria.Bingo was diagnosed with canine transmissible tumor in 2024,and History shows that he got infected in the course of breeding with a nierbours female cat that was recently brought to the area.
To cut the story short ,Peter lost bingo and that nearly took away peter's happiness, because he lost a pet that he adopted as a child.

It took one of our life's biggest joys away from us.

Honey
My Golden Girl
April 11, 2008 – January 28, 2021
“I remember seeing Andrew and Honey, together. It was the happenstance moment, when I was
walking by. Sitting at a GoggleWorks café, Honey was lounging at Andrew’s feet. They both greeted me.
It is that rare moment when you feel all is well in the world. Sometimes, I still see them in the same spot,
surrounded by light and enjoying conversation. I am truly thankful for that moment when two angels
just happened to be.”
— Elaine Soltis
✦
After I moved from Los Angeles to New York City in 2009, I found out very quickly that
a city of eight million people can be about the loneliest place on earth. I didn’t know
anyone. The streets were loud and full and rushing past me in every direction, and at the
end of the day I’d come home to a quiet apartment and sit with the silence. It was heavy,
that silence. It had weight.
But on my walks through Central Park, I’d notice something that kept pulling at me.
People with their dogs. The way they moved through the world together, unhurried, as if
the whole city could spin around them and it didn’t matter. Neither one of them ever
looked lonely. I’d watch from a bench or a path and think: if I could just have that — just
one companion to share this life with — I’d never ask for anything else again.
There was a place in the park I kept returning to. Just inside the 72nd Street entrance,
across from the Dakota where John Lennon had lived, was Strawberry Fields — a small
circle of stone embedded with the word “Imagine,” surrounded by benches where
thousands of people come every year just to sit where John and Yoko once sat. It had
become a memorial to peace, to love, to the belief that what you put into the universe
matters. I’d sit on those benches alone and close my eyes and think about my life and
what it could become. I’d ask — quietly, to whoever or whatever might be listening — for
a companion. A golden retriever. A friend.
I didn’t think it was possible to sit in Strawberry Fields in the middle of Central Park
and ask the universe for a dog. I was proven wrong. Apparently, the gods do listen when
called upon.
I told my mother. She is the God whisperer of our family — if anyone was ever in need of
love or comfort or help, we could always count on her prayers reaching somewhere the
rest of ours couldn’t. She said she’d keep her eyes open and ask around. I told her I
wanted a golden retriever, because my folks had one named Ollie after I left for college,
and he was the sweetest soul I’d ever known.
Exactly two weeks later, I got the call.
✦
My mother’s hairdresser had a granddaughter who’d found a stray — a young golden
retriever, barely a year old, roaming the open fields of Honeybrook, a quiet country town
just outside of Reading, Pennsylvania. No collar, no tags, no owner to be found. Just a
beautiful golden girl wandering through the tall grass like she was looking for someone,
too.
It was a Saturday afternoon in the spring of 2010. I’d come home to visit my mother, as I
often did on weekends. She called me into the family room and said she wanted me to
meet someone. I sat down and waited, not knowing what to expect.
Out of the other room came running a gorgeous young golden retriever. She crossed the
floor quickly, sniffed beneath my feet, and then lifted her head and looked straight into
my eyes. I was stunned. My breath caught in my chest. I looked at this beautiful creature
and my eyes welled with a kind of joy I’d never felt before. She sat in front of me,
panting softly, and then — without a word, without a command, without anyone telling
her to — she lifted her two front paws and placed them gently on my lap.
She picked me. And I picked her. And every person in that room saw it happen. I could
see it in their eyes, too — the quiet happiness of watching two beings find each other
exactly when they were supposed to.
That night was as sweet as apple pie. She laid right next to my bed as I slept, and she
was the first thing I saw when I woke the following morning. That Sunday we hopped in
the car and made the long drive back to my apartment on the Upper West Side of
Manhattan. I was living on 102nd Street, just a block from one of the main entrances to
Central Park — the same park where I’d spent all those months wishing.
That late afternoon, we walked in together for the first time. The spring light was soft
through the trees and the air carried that feeling of everything waking up again. She
stayed by my side at every turn, as if she already understood. Not so long ago, I’d walked
these same paths alone, asking the universe for exactly this. And now here she was. I
named her Honey — after Honeybrook, the place she’d been found, wandering those
fields as if the universe had set her down there to wait for me.
✦
The years that followed were the best of my life. Not some of the best. The best.
Every morning, Honey would jump up on my bed, turn herself around, and lay her
whole warm body across my chest just to say good morning. She’d stay there a moment,
breathing softly, her golden face inches from mine. Then we’d both get up and stand
side by side at the bathroom sink to have our teeth brushed. Yes, we did that too. It was
our ritual, and she expected it — she’d stand there waiting with the patience of a person
who understood routine.
Just past the 102nd Street entrance to the park was a curved walkway that led to a
soccer field where, every morning between seven and nine, dogs and their owners
gathered. Twenty-five, sometimes fifty dogs on a given day, chasing frisbees, bounding
after sticks, tumbling over each other in the grass. Most owners let their dogs off leash
and simply watched them play. It always struck me how the dogs just knew — they
understood it was their place, their time, and they played well together as if they’d all
agreed to the rules. I was a little hesitant at first and kept Honey on a retractable leash,
but within a week I let her go. She didn’t stray far. She never did. Even when she was
completely free, she circled back to me, as if her freedom and mine were the same thing.
We were trailblazers in that park for two solid years, there every morning to chase balls
and feel the world open up around us. We’d walk for miles and miles, sit on benches and
watch the birds settle in the trees, and just take in the air on a beautiful day. Those were
the kind of hours that don’t feel like hours at all.
I brought her to Strawberry Fields many times after that. I’d sit on those same benches
where I used to sit alone, and the difference now was almost too much to hold. The first
time I brought her there, she walked to the center of the memorial circle, the one that
says “Imagine,” and just laid herself down. Quiet. Eyes squinted against the light,
panting softly — and I swear it looked like she was smiling, as if to say, thank you for
bringing me here. As if she knew what this place meant to me. She had a way of talking
to me without words. Just a look would do. And there were always kisses, too.
Because of some high blood pressure, I was able to make her a certified service dog. We
followed all the guidelines, got proper instruction and licensing, and from that point on
she could go everywhere with me. And because I’m a professional photographer with the
freedom to shoot in studios and on location, she did. She lived my same life right
alongside me — always around people, music, art, and the steady click of the shutter.
She wasn’t just with me. She was part of every frame, every session, every late night and
early morning.
People who knew Honey were always amazed by her. She had this particular politeness
around others — a grace, really — that you’d have to see to believe. She moved through a
room the way some people do, the ones who put everyone at ease just by being present.
While she always seemed to understand every word I said, anyone who met her would
tell you the same thing: she was a very, very special dog.
She was also deeply affectionate, and she could read a room — especially mine — better
than anyone I’ve ever known. One evening in our New York apartment, I was sitting in
my oversized white chair feeling low. I was missing friends I’d left behind in Los
Angeles, uncertain about my future in photography, unsure if I’d made the right choices.
A few quiet tears ran down my face. I hadn’t called her. I hadn’t even looked at her. But
she got up from the floor, jumped into that chair, climbed right into my lap, licked the
tears off my cheek, and nuzzled deep into my shoulder. And just like that, whatever I’d
been carrying lifted off me in an instant. I hugged her and kissed her cheek and
whispered that I loved her. That’s the kind of creature she was. I nicknamed her
“Peachy” somewhere along the way — another small word of thanks for being so
endlessly kind to me. The name just fit.
And she had her quirks, every one of them completely her own. She loved watching
Animal Planet on the television — she’d stare at the screen with total absorption, like it
was the greatest story ever told. She had a small stuffed toy dog that she’d hold in her
mouth whenever she wanted to feel cozy, carrying it with her to her favorite spot — that
same oversized white chair — where she’d curl up and settle in with the toy tucked
beneath her chin.
But the one thing she did that I’ve never seen another dog do was this: I’d say, “Wanna
go for a walk?” and she’d trot straight to her retractable leash, pick it up by the handle in
her mouth, and bring it to me so I could clip it to her collar. But if I tried to take the
handle from her, she’d flinch her head in the other direction. She wanted to carry it
herself. She’d walk down the street holding her own leash with this quiet pride, and
people passing by would laugh and say, “Looks like she’s taking you for a walk.” It was
funny every single time. But it was hers.
She loved water with a kind of abandon. The beach at Cape May, a lake, a stream, any
body of water we came across — she was always the first one in, plunging forward like
she couldn’t believe her luck. To see her swim was something. And if I said, “Do you
wanna take a bath?” she’d sprint to the bathroom, leap into the tub, and turn her back to
the faucet so I could hose her down. No protest, no negotiation. She loved every second
of it.
She loved music, too. I played a lot of it on the stereo — all kinds — and if I stood in
front of her while it played, she’d rise up on her hind legs, tall and steady like a person,
and put her front paws out to mine. And we’d dance. Right there in the living room,
swaying together while the music played, we’d dance the nights away. I know how that
sounds. I don’t care. It was ours.
She was a natural retriever in every sense. She’d chase tennis balls, sticks, anything I
threw. Inside, she’d fetch whatever I asked for — slippers, hats, socks, coats, leashes —
and she loved to bring me things on her own, too. Toys, newspapers, whatever she could
carry. She’d trot over and drop them right at my feet, as if to say: these are for you.
The last few years were probably our best. Honey and I lived in Nashville, where I
worked part-time at a photo outlet. The first day I brought her in, the entire staff looked
at me like I’d lost my mind. Within a week, they were her best friends. That was her way.
She made everyone feel like they’d known her forever.
I also worked as a staff photographer for one of the best live country music venues in the
city, and Honey became part of the crew — backstage before and after every show,
greeting the artists as they came and went, as comfortable under stage lights as she was
in a park.
One night I’ll never forget. We were heading out the door after a show, but Honey pulled
me back. She wanted to say hello to someone — a man I’d never met, sitting quietly by
himself in a corner. She went right to him, and he reached down and petted her without
a word. I looked up and realized it was John Oates, of Hall & Oates. What a wonderful,
gentle person he was to us, and especially to her. He later told me he’d been feeling a
little blue that evening, and having Honey there made things better. That was her gift.
She could walk into a room and sense who needed love, and she’d go to them without
being asked. Love is what she did best. Just love.
Together we came full circle. Reading, New York, Nashville, and back to Reading. She
had a good life with me and I with her, and those days will never be forgotten.
✦
In her last weeks, Honey started having trouble with the stairs to my bedroom where we
slept. I’d fold my hands beneath her belly like a harness, take the weight of her body in
my arms, and together we’d make it up, one step at a time. She’d let me help without
complaint, her breathing slow and heavy against my hands.
But the last couple of nights before the diagnosis, something changed. She made it up
the stairs on her own. She climbed them by herself, stepped carefully onto the stool
beside my queen-sized bed, and settled in next to me like she always had. I lay there in
the dark beside her and thought: either she doesn’t want to burden me anymore, or she’s
showing me she can still do it. I don’t know which it was. But I’m pretty sure she knew
what she was doing. She always wanted to please me, right up to the end.
She had been skipping meals. She seemed tired in a way I hadn’t seen before — not the
tired of a long walk or a hot afternoon, but something deeper, something behind her
eyes. She was nearly thirteen. I told myself it was just age catching up. But something in
me knew to go to the vet.
The news was not good. X-rays suggested she might be suffering from
hemangiosarcoma, the deadliest of all cancers in dogs — a disease that lodges silently on
internal organs, growing in the dark without so much as a symptom until it’s nearly too
late. It was likely the cause of her exhaustion. My vet referred me immediately to a
hospital for further testing.
After blood work and ultrasounds, the hospital physician confirmed a cancerous mass
on her spleen and said it may have already spread. I’d heard from close friends whose
dogs had survived longer after surgery. So without hesitation, I asked for the same. The
prognosis was uncertain. There were no guarantees. But what else would I do? She was
my life. I believed she was in safe, reliable hands.
The surgery was a success. The surgeon called to say Honey was doing well and they
wanted to keep her for observation. For the first time in years, we spent a night apart. I
was on eggshells the entire time. But that phone call gave me hope — enough to believe
we might have more time.
✦
The next evening, as I was getting ready to pick her up, the hospital called. Honey was
not doing well. I should come soon.
I arrived around eight o’clock on January 28, 2021, and was led to a small room where I
waited alone for fifteen minutes that felt like an hour. Then the doctor came in and told
me Honey had worsened dramatically — internal hemorrhaging, a blood transfusion,
her life in jeopardy. I asked what could be done. The doctor’s only answer was to
consider euthanasia.
What followed were the most agonizing hours of my life. Honey lay on a gurney in that
room, bleeding, occasionally gasping and lifting her head from side to side, and I stood
beside her with no answers, no options, and a doctor who could offer neither. I asked to
speak with the surgeon, with the physician who’d overseen her diagnosis, with anyone
who might help. I was told no other doctor was available. At a twenty-four-hour
emergency hospital. During an emergency.
I don’t tell this part of the story to assign blame. I tell it because I learned something
that night that every person who loves an animal needs to hear: you must be your own
advocate in that room. Not every doctor will fight for your animal the way you will. Not
every doctor will have answers when you need them most. And when someone in a white
coat tells you there’s nothing left to do, you are still allowed to ask questions, to push
back, to insist on the care your animal deserves.
I had to insist that night. When they prepared to euthanize Honey, they moved to
administer the barbiturate without a tranquilizer first. I had spent the night before
researching the process, sick with dread but needing to understand what might happen.
I knew a sedative should come first. I knew the overdose alone could cause pain. I told
them to stop. I told them to sedate her. They argued with me. And finally, reluctantly,
they did.
A nurse came in and injected the tranquilizer into Honey’s back left thigh. I asked how
long. Five to ten minutes, she said. I leaned close and said my goodbye. I told her how
much I loved her. I told her she was my everything. I told her she had answered every
prayer I’d ever whispered into the universe, from that bench in Strawberry Fields to the
quiet of my apartment to the open fields of Honeybrook where she’d once wandered
alone. About eight minutes later, Honey went to sleep. I want to believe the sedative
alone was enough — that she simply drifted away, gently, without pain.
I held her in my arms for hours after that. I felt her warmth slowly leave. No one came.
No doctor returned to offer a word or a hand on my shoulder. Eventually a nurse
appeared in the doorway and asked, gently, if she could take Honey now. I nodded. And
I watched her wheel my girl’s body down the empty, silent hall until I couldn’t see her
anymore.
I walked out into the cold darkness of the night, alone.
✦
For twelve years, Honey gave me everything. She gave me companionship when I was
alone in a city of strangers. She gave me purpose on the days I had none. She jumped
into my chair when I was crying and leaned into me until it stopped. She sat in the
center of Strawberry Fields with her eyes squinted shut like she was smiling. She carried
her own leash down the sidewalk with quiet pride. She danced with me in the living
room. She pulled me across a backstage hallway to comfort a man she’d never met
because he needed love and she had it to give. And she climbed the stairs on her own at
the very end, even when it hurt, because she didn’t want me to carry her anymore.
Dogs are our children. Anyone who has held one in their arms at the end knows this.
And Hemangiosarcoma — this silent, merciless cancer — took mine from me in a matter
of days after hiding inside her for who knows how long. If my story can do anything, I
hope it moves the research forward. I hope it brings us closer to catching this disease
before it steals another golden girl from someone who loves her the way I loved mine.
For six months after Honey died, I cried most nights. The apartment was quiet in that
old familiar way, except now the silence was worse because I knew what it was missing.
I’d reach for her in the dark and she wasn’t there. Her leash still hung by the door. Her
chair was still in the corner. The whole apartment was full of her and empty of her at the
same time.
If you’ve ever loved a dog the way I loved Honey, you know the thought that comes next:
I could never do this again. Because when you lose a dog, it doesn’t just hurt — it feels
like something inside you broke. Dogs don’t just pass through our lives. They move in.
They rearrange everything. And when they go, they leave their marks on every corner of
your being. So if the idea of loving another dog can feel wrong, like you’d somehow be
replacing them, or erasing what you shared, remember they truly never leave us.
But here is the truth, as I’ve come to understand it. The love you gave your dog didn’t
disappear when they left. It enriched you. All the patience they taught you, all the joy, all
the tenderness and softness you didn’t even know you had in you — that’s still there. It
lives inside you now. And loving another dog doesn’t erase any of it. It carries you
forward. Every dog changes us, and the next one doesn’t take their place — they benefit
from who you became because of the one who came before. In that way, loving again
isn’t a betrayal. It’s devotion. It’s proof that what they gave you mattered enough to keep
living life.
So six months after losing Honey, I cautiously decided to find another golden girl. I
found a breeder this time who assured me the lineage was cancer-free, and the only
thing I could hope for was that this disease would never take another one from me.
When I went to pick her up, she was just eight weeks old and full of life — the last of the
litter, the one no one had chosen yet. But she was mine. And when our eyes met, it was
like seeing Honey’s eyes for the first time all over again.
It was a beautiful summer afternoon. I decided to name her Sommer — with an “o,”
because Honey has an “o” in it, and somehow the name just worked. She has become the
sweetest thing to me and has made my life so much more bearable than it would have
been had I not opened my heart again.
I believe, somewhere inside Sommer, Honey still lives. Not as a reincarnated being, but
as a spirit — that same spirit of love and kindness that all these gorgeous creatures seem
to share. A golden thread that runs through them, one to the next, reminding us that the
love we give and the love we got is never really gone. It just finds a new place to live.
I can truly say I have never loved another being the way I loved Honey, and I know that
heaven is a better place with her there now. She is and will always be my most beloved,
precious girl, and I miss her every minute of every day.
✦
And as I held her in my loving arms, she was gone. But every morning when Sommer
lays across my chest, I feel it — that same golden love that found me when I needed it
most. Honey is still here. — Andrew Orth

We lost our precious boy to osteosarcoma in 2021. We received the cancer diagnosis in 2018. He broke his leg and that’s how we discovered it. We removed the leg and did chemo and he lived for 2.5 years more way past the time we were told he would live. He was an absolute miracle and the love of my life. I still think about him daily and will love him forever ❤️💔

My terk-y boy was a big, patient, kind guardian. He didn't want to play fetch a few days before Thanksgiving and a week later he was gone to lymphoblastic leukemia, way too young. I miss him every day. All good boys should have more time than he got to play ball and lay in the sun.

I lost my best friend so very quickly to hemangiosarcoma. In a matter of days, we went from hiking to confusion to procedures to the most difficult decision of my life. I miss him every single day. I hope we find a way to diagnose and treat this terrible disease so others don't have to experience what my little dude had to.

My golden Pumpkin had lymphoma and passed at age 11. Then I decided to rescue a dog from local Humane Society and he developed a highly aggressive sarcoma and died at age 12. They are both greatly missed every day.

I pledge to Stop Cancer Furever because I wish I could have taken my sweet Sarafina's suffering away. She fought valiantly through chemo, dietary changes, appointments, pain, medication, a seizure, and a constantly upset stomach for far too long. She was brave, loving, and so tough through it all.

I lost my two best buddies that were like children to me to canine cancer. Artie's was liver and Abby's was stomach. And I lost them about 18 mths apart. I cannot explain the pain and it never stops. We've got to somehow stop this devastating disease!

Molly was such a golden girl in the whole sense, she attrackted people like magnet and it was usual for me to be asked to take pictures of her. She was kind, and lovable, saddly cancer took her life fairly quickly and what suprised me the most is that she never complained once, it was very difficult to realize that she was facing such painful end. She was missed around the neighborhood and thanks to her i knew many of my nieghbors and their pets as well. She kept me sane during COVID and gave me the love only a dog can give. She will be forever in my heart.