My Buddy Pokey
I’m Griffin, one of the team members here at Pronova. Today I want to share a quick story about my childhood dog, Pokey. It was my seventh birthday and I kept getting dog toys for presents. Somehow unaware of the writing on the wall, I was shocked when the next gift bag came and inside was a tiny puppy. I was immediately obsessed; he was a small black and white mix between a cocker spaniel and poodle and was extremely loving. Over the years we became the best of friends. Some of Pokey’s favorite things were playing in the snow and going in the water. When we would have blizzards, he would bounce around in the foot-high snow and pop up covered in the stuff. While others were less than thrilled to have a huge snow storm, Pokey and I would be thrilled. Sometimes I’d even take him on my sled and go down the hill near our house. And in the summer he had a hilarious swimming habit. He would use his snub tail as a propellor, sending it in a circular spin as he swam, splashing everyone. Pokey did have his issues. We never fully trained him as well as we should’ve and he had a singular obsession with human food. Thus he would often find a way to snatch things off the counter when no one was looking (despite his small stature) and this caused havoc many times. He also was not great with other dogs. When I was entering eighth grade, he escaped his collar and chased after my homeroom teacher and her dog right before the first day of class. Not a great look. But through it all, he was my best bud. I knew I could always count on his excitement when I came home and I always looked forward to rubbing his belly. When I was 18, though, I got a call while I was at work that Pokey had cancer. An unnoticeable growth in his mouth had ballooned into a mouth cancer that was expanding rapidly. It was spreading so quickly and aggressively that we would’ve needed to remove his whole jaw to get rid of it, and what life would’ve that left him with? Ultimately, after a few more tearful weeks showering him with love, he stopped eating and we had to put him down. My experience with Pokey is one of the main reasons I think Pronova is important. Who knows how much we missed over the years that was hurting him. If we had been regularly monitoring his health using Kora Strips, we could have been able to see an abnormal spike in inflammation before the growth in his mouth became visually noticeable. At that point, a surgical intervention would’ve been far more practical than when its growth exploded. Who knows how much longer he would’ve been able to be with our family. Obviously we can’t control everything in life, certainly not death. But having all the tools you can have at your disposal helps make us more responsible pet owners. I felt like I let Pokey down when he got sick, and I don’t want to ever feel that way again. Being part of the Pronova team gives me hope that a lot of health problems like Pokey’s can be caught early, giving us more time with our best friends.
