Mabel

First time I met Mabel

This post is long overdue – a blog about Mabel.

Instagram friends will know her right away. I’ve been posting Mabel pix for a couple years and her struggle with cancer very recently. Some reading this in the future may have met her at Miata Reunion 2024. But she’s as much a part of me as Sharka and deserved the spotlight.

Puppy Mabel

Splooted under the couch

Mabel came from the pound. I met her at about 7 months according to her teeth. She’s a Pomeranian / Aussie Cattle Dog mix with a little Chow-chow and Shih Tzu. She came home with us on tax day of 2022. She’s the best little dog in the world.

Everyone says that about their dog, see. But Mabel? She’s actually the best. She has a trophy or certification or something.

She was originally meant to be my daughter’s dog and a family dog. And she was for a little over a year.

Baby Mabel with a horn button

Baby Mabel and Sharka

For being such a small dog, Mabel had a BIIIIIG personality. Huge. Mabel always had a huge smile and was eager to go go go. Walks, car rides, park trips, over to the grandparent’s for food. She wanted to do it all.

Big personality.

We tried to put Mabel into puppy class at the nearby Petsmart. She failed out.

Yeah. Really.

Mabel was “too high energy” for the class. She’d play and play and play and play. The other puppies (big or small) would get played out and be hiding behind their owner’s legs. Mabel would still be running and nipping at their butts. No power could stop her. It was Mabel playtime!

So… no obedience class for her.

Mabel and Soos

Besties

They have a love.

That same year, my daughter got a diagnoses and we were suggested that she get a service dog. I won’t go into details, but yeah… service dog. And that dog was NOT gonna be Mabel.

Mabel, puppy school dropout, was NOT cut out to be a service dog. So a little internet research revealed that a Golden Retriever would be the best choice. In July of 2023, Soos joined our family.

Yeah, Mabel and Soos. We are all big Gravity Falls fans. And if that title isn’t familiar to you, you should check it out. Gravity Falls is a cartoon, but it’s SO good. And the characters in the show of Mabel and Soos have very similar personalities to our Mabel and Soos dogs.

He’s adorable.

I mean, look at this little guy. He’s just so fuzzy. He’s now 80 lbs at the time of this writing, but man… so fuzzy. So sweet.

Puppy class.

Soos on the way to class.

So, puppy Soos started to learn to be a service dog at about 10 weeks of age. A family friend hooked us up with an amazing trainer (K9 Creations NM) and Harriet started to train Soos herself.

Being 11, she couldn’t drive to class herself. And she couldn’t always attend class. I would take Soos on days that Harriet couldn’t. And it was FASCINATING.

And you’re thinking “Why am I reading about this goldie? What about Mabel?” right? It’s all in her origin story. I can’t leave parts out.

Mabel on the way to one of her first classes.

SDiT Mabel

I mentioned that Harriet isn’t old enough to drive, right? So I’m taking her and Soos to class and kinda walking along bored. And the trainer, Page, says to me “Just bring your dog next time.” And having seen how these amazing SERVICE DOGS behave, I was all about it.

So Mabel started going to Service Dog Class.

It started out pretty rough. She was everywhere. She was tugging on her leash. She wasn’t able to stay. Or sit. Or do much at all. But she could do an incredible “Cover” (where the dog lays on your lap to calm you down) and wasn’t reactive around the other dogs. No barking or fighting. So she got to keep coming.

Soos with his Puppy Star

Meanwhile, Soos was a natural. He has learned in class honestly, but he just does everything naturally. He walks correctly. He sits and stays. Other dogs don’t bother him. Nothing distracts him. He’s attentive and perfect. He was born to be a service dog and he’s amazing.

And Mabel started to get sick.

Months of vet visits

At some point in her first year, Mabel decided she was my dog. She loves everyone, but I’m graced with her special love and attention. It’s wonderful. I’m honestly blessed with this.

She also started spraying blood out of her nose a few months after Soos joined our family. Just tons of blood randomly. She also developed an eye problem. The photo above is at the doggy eye doctor.

Her eye problem was an eyelash that was pointed the wrong way and was scraping her eye. Not too common, but easy to fix. She had a minor surgery. While getting intubated, the eye doctor noticed that Mabel had a hole in her gums that lead into her nasal cavity. We got a referral to a doggy dentist.

Meanwhile, we were bouncing from vet to vet trying to figure out what the nose bleeding issue was. No one had any ideas beyond allergies or something lodged in her nose. The dentist looked at Mabel’s gums, saw the big mass on the side of her snoot and suggested getting a CT. A few hours later we learned that Mabel had cancer.

Not even 2 years old… and she had cancer.

Cancer.

At this point, Soos was most of the way through service dog class and Mabel had passed her first test (Canine Good Citizen). She went everywhere with me and had wrapped herself completely around my heart. And though it would be stupid expensive, I thought this dog needed a chance at life. So we started chemo.

Mabel had a kind of cancer called TVT – Transmissible Venereal Tumor. This is one of three cancers that can actually spread from mammal to mammal, though not from dog to human, and is usually spread via doggy sex. It’s on their reproductive areas in 99% of cases. And the cancer is this huge, angry, spikey looking mass. Looks like it’s straight out of an anime. And in Mabel, it was in her nose.

At the time she was sick, they estimated about 10 animals in the world had TVT in their noses. It’s that rare. Insane rare. Write-a-paper-about-it rare.

Mabel was almost certainly born with it and got it from her mom. She had cancer her whole life and the mass had eaten away a lot of the bone in her snoot. It was extremely close to the tiny sliver that separates the sinus cavity from the brain. She had maybe 2 weeks until she died.

2 weeks.

On a “last” Sharka ride.

The doctors rushed her into chemo. TVT is super reactive to chemo. You can’t operate on it and can’t irradiate it, but chemo makes it wilt. And that saved Mabel’s life.

A “last” trip out to see friends.

It was beyond stressful and I did not dare hope that she’d live. On that first week of chemo, I took Mabel out to her favorite places. Favorite coffee shop, a car ride in Sharka, a trip out with her friends. A last class with her service dog group.

I even gave her some chocolate. Not a lot. But she was at the chocolate portion of her life. She deserved to have a little before she died.

And she got better.

A last kid’s visit

Loving on everyone.

Since she had a huge tumor in her nose, she could barely breathe anymore. She had to pant. And dogs don’t like to do that except to stay cool, so I kept her in sweaters the whole time.

Mabel is also extremely good around kids. Well, around everyone, but especially kids. I’m training her to be a therapy dog because of that nature. We often go out and see sick kids. The photos above are at a Christmas event.

After 2 chemos.

I said that TVT is extremely reactive to chemo, right? After the first treatment, she improved. The tumor was smaller and the bleeding stopped that first week. I thought I was dreaming and maybe she was just having a good day. I took weekly “progress” photos of her nose tumor.

After the second treatment, she was “better” and the third treatment had her almost back to normal. We took the above photo somewhere between treatments 2 and 3.

It was a miracle. A Christmas Miracle.

Cancer free.

Yeah. We’re both that happy.

Mabel ended up with six chemo treatments to completely wipe the cancer out. Lots of CT scans and lots of drugs. Tons of cost. I posted about it on instagram and ran my yearly Sharksgiving sale an extra few days and that helped cover about half of the treatment. It was incredible and the Miata community really really helped us in a huge way. I’m so grateful.

It felt like a dream. Having her almost die and then rebound that quick.

The nose bleeds never returned.

Soos graduated.

After seven months of classes, Soos graduated as a fully certified service dog. He started going to school with Harriet and is just an incredible creature.

Mabel went from F Student to Sick Dog (TM) to Class Clown in service dog class. Getting her sense of smell back set her progress back a couple months. Watching her SMELL things was both adorable and heart breaking. She would just reverently smell any given thing in public and just totally stop whatever she was doing. Took her a while to get used to that again. Probably like being able to see in color again or get hearing aids or something.

And then… I got cancer.

Moody Cancer Photoshoot

No, I’m not making this up. The very week that Mabel was cleared from her cancer, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. It was a hell of a 6 months…

Long story short, I’m actually cured. Right now typing this, I’m cancer free. I had one surgery and didn’t need chemo. It was like a stress dream. I woke up from it and was cured. My whole cancer fight took about 4 months.

Mabel was with me.

I know it was scary for her. The smells in the various doctor offices I had to go to must have reminded her of her own cancer treatment. I’d see her tuck her tail and not want to go into different places… but she still went. I never had to tug or coax her.

Mabel went to every cancer treatment / test that I had except for the surgery. She was still in training (SDiTs get full access rights here in the US) but she accompanied me like a pro.

Because she’s my service dog. I now have one.

Do I need one? I’m a little sad to say that yes, I do. I have my own mental issues and have panic attacks. She helps me incredibly. I faced each of those cancer tests with next to zero stress. Mabel was with me. She crushed cancer. I could do it too.

And I did. I crushed cancer.

Mabel graduated.

Mabel’s Service Dog License

Mabel graduated service dog school early this June. She’s now a fully certified service dog. She goes everywhere with me. She’s my little pokemon partner. I’m so proud of her.

So that’s a little about my life these past couple months and years. Much of it revolves around Mabel. She’ll be joining me at Miata Reunion this fall. We can’t wait to see all of you.