Louie-Louie’s Story

In Nov 2008, Louie-Louie, my Chinese Crested, was diagnosed with Stage IVa B-Cell Lymphoma. Louie-Louie started the CHOP protocol, and with his oncologist’s encouragement, continued to actively participate in Flyball and Agility. Since his diagnosis, I learned to enjoy every thing Louie and I did together, and to let him do things he loved. We got the opportunity to participate in different activities and to be grew into being an ambassador that canine cancer treatment does not mean life stops. And we made many new friends. As some of our agility canine pals came down with cancer, Louie-Louie was there to say, look, there is hope. He did this by loving life. In his third week of his initial treatment, he played flyball and finished up the Flyball Grand Champion title which meant he had earned 30,000 life time NAFA flyball points. In Week 5 of treatment, we traveled via air to 2008 AKC Agility Invitationals where he finished up in 13th place in his height division. We were often going to agility class after treatments. And he did fine. Less than 1 year from diagnosis, he completed his third AKC Agility Championship, MACH3 and attended the NAFA CaAm, a premier flyball event. Thirteen months after diagnosis and treatment start, Louie came out of remission and started treatment again. This time with a mixture of CHOP and CCNU, he quickly went into his second remission. We are now past the 24 month point of his initial diagnosis and he is still in his second remission. Louie is semi-retired but is still playing flyball and agility. What he likes best is riding to the drive-thru.