Asia is a 6 yr old blue girl who came to DAR&E in Sept of 1998 when her owners moved and left her in
a shelter. On her turn in sheet, they put that she was aggressive and would make a good police dog.
When I heard about her, I thought to myself "I hope I never have to foster that one!".
Well, as fate would have it, I did end up fostering her (of course). And I loved her!
She figured out all of our routines from day one, she loved everybody, and she was attached to me
from the outset. But I had two dogs of my own and fostered and convinced myself that if we could
find her a good home, then she should be adopted. So after a month, Asia went to her new home.
Three months later, she had returned. It took me a while to convince my husband that she should
stay, but eventually he came around (all of those face washes from her certainly helped). Hence,
her ILP name is DARE’s Asia Blue Came Back for You.
We started off training in agility and she loved that - then we started in obedience classes,
which she had never had. She was so smart, I swear she’d watch my friend’s Weimaraner working in
Open in the same class, look at me as if to say "I can do that!" and then she would. In the spring of
2001, I felt that we were ready to start trialing. We entered the MPDPC specialty and Asia’s silly
handler NQ’d her by giving her both a verbal and hand command on the recall.
Then we entered both days of the Richmond Dog Obedience Club trials in May. The first day, only a
couple of dogs qualified, and Asia was not among them. The 2nd day was Mother’s Day and she not
only qualified, we had to have a run off for first place!! We ended up getting 2nd place but I was
ecstatic!
We did an outdoor show the next weekend and Asia decided to try out some agility moves - jumping out
of the ring on the heel free exercise (but impressing everyone with the instant recall) and then
again on the recall – she zipped past me, jumped the ring and danced around with a butt wag I’ve
seen often. She was having a party!
We took the summer off and planned to find some more indoor trials in the Fall and finish the CD.
In late July, Asia began to limp. After several months of x-rays, orthopedic consults, rest, more
x-rays, EMG’s, neurological consults, etc., the vets were all telling me that this was either
nerve sheath tumors (a type of slow growing but paralyzing cancer) or some other degenerative
nerve disease and it was looking pretty grim. I could not let it go at that - this girl had always
been a sparkling representative of the breed and given everything she could to me. If there was
something to be done for her, I had to try. I wasn’t ready to lose her.
In early December, we finally went to the Veterinary Hospital at the Univ of Pennsylvania,
where they did a CAT scan and found a soft tissue sarcoma buried in the upper thigh muscle of her
left hind leg and pressing on her femoral nerve. We had to amputate the leg in order to ensure
clear margins, but the oncologists feel that there is less than a 10% chance that Asia’s cancer
will return. Five weeks after her amputation, she was running at a friend’s, jumping fallen trees
and having a blast. At nine weeks post amputation, she was at a friend’s, doing the tunnel and
sitting and downing for clicks.
Having represented DAR&E, Doberman rescue and Dobermans on several tv shows and in public in the
past, she has now begun the same education on behalf of canine tripods!
