How Getting a Puppy Helped My Terminally Ill Teen

The puppy was 10 weeks old and a little over a pound the day we brought him home. He was a fancy mutt, a combination miniature poodle and Yorkshire terrier (yorkie-poo) that will likely grow no larger than five or six pounds. My 14-year-old daughter was in Manhattan getting radiation for tumors in her lungs the day I picked him up - he was a surprise that would be waiting for her that night. I'd originally told her we would get a dog when radiation treatments were over -- something for her to look forward to after three weeks of daily trips to the hospital (a six-hour round trip from our home in the Hudson Valley). I kept my younger daughter home from school the day we got him, mostly because I was terrified of being alone with a dog, even one so small. I've been a cat person all my life. "I don't know about this," I'd said as we drove away from the kennel. "This is the best day of my life," my daughter had responded. The puppy was curled up in her lap, looking a bit uncertain himself. We named him Roo (after the Winnie the Poo character) because he hopped around so much. He was my responsibility for the first month. My husband needed to focus on getting enough rest for the daily drives, and my older daughter, exhausted from the commute and double dose of radiation, barely had enough energy to greet him each evening before going upstairs to rest. "He smells," she said the first day. So I gave him a bath. Roo slept in a crate each night without complaint. He was very r...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news