THE HEART BEHIND CLEO’S LEGACY
Discover the journey that inspired our mission
These are their Stories
AboutCleo
Cleo’s Legacy is a tribute to my beautiful and perfect red standard poodle, Cleo. I know that everyone thinks they have the greatest dog in the world, and they should, but Cleo was not just a dog. She was magnificent. She was my soulmate. We were connected in a way that I cannot even describe because there are not words powerful enough to do so. She knew what I was thinking. I could really hear her talk to me. Her entire life she was at my side. I could not get up to get a drink or go to the bathroom without her getting up and coming with me. She was looking at me all the time, hanging on my every move, on my every word. I never realized how much I talked to her until she was gone. It was constant. We were constantly talking to each other.
In May of 2021, just before her 13th birthday, a small mass was discovered in Cleo’s right caudal lung lobe. We had done a chest x-ray because Cleo had had a cough for a few years that seemed to be getting worse with no explanation. Previous chest x-rays and ultrasounds had revealed nothing of concern. I called every specialty vet in a 2 hour radius of our home but when they asked me if I needed an oncologist or a surgeon, my response was “I thought that’s what you would tell me?” Either way, they did not have availability until August. I can’t tell you how upsetting it was to know that my dog, my heart and soul dog, had cancer and we had to wait that long to see someone and then we weren’t even sure if we were seeing the right someone. We were put on the call lists for a cancellation appointment everywhere.
Finally, we got a call back and a June appointment with a surgeon had opened up. The surgeon was positive and we scheduled surgery for later that month. The weekend before the surgery, Cleo had, what we thought, was a seizure. She had never had a seizure before so all thoughts turned to the possibility of a brain tumor. Obviously, we had to cancel the surgery and I was able to get a pretty quick appointment with a neurologist for an MRI. If she had a brain tumor, then the surgery would not be necessary. When we had gone to the emergency hospital (of course it was a late Friday night), the doctor on duty had noted slightly swollen lymph glands in her neck and the possibility of it being a vestibular event rather than a seizure. After further thought, it lasted much too long to be a seizure and something else must be up. I had experienced both seizures and vestibular events with previous dogs. The stumbling, the inability to hold her head up, the vibrating eyes (nystagmus)....that was all vestibular.
At our neurology appointment, the neurologist did not like my description of the mystery cough that had been an annoyance for years and the fact that she had been behaving head shy for a few weeks, which was very unlike her. She had been telling me that something was wrong. He suggested an MRI of both the head and neck. Great news…no brain tumor, but….there was a neck tumor. That explained what the emergency doc had felt in her neck. The general vet had missed it on her annual exam the month before and the surgeon missed it the week before. The neurologist thought the surgeon would be able to remove it and personally knew the surgeon we had scheduled with from medical school and had a high opinion of him.
After a discussion with the surgeon determining that he could remove both in the same surgery, we rescheduled for early July. Cleo came through the surgery like a champ. One lung lobe removed with, obviously, very clear margins and one soft tissue neck tumor removed with not so clear margins due to the location and other structures in the area. The oncologist was next.
The tumors turned out to be two different cancers and unrelated to one another. The lung tumor, they felt, was nothing to worry about. The lobe was gone. End of story. The neck tumor, however, was a nasty sarcoma with an extremely high mitotic rate (cell division rate). This one was worrisome and doxorubicin chemotherapy was recommended. Two different oncologists were consulted and they agreed on the course of treatment so we went to the hospital that was slightly closer, but still an hour and forty minutes away. Chemotherapy started on August 5, 2021.
Cleo was a magnificent patient. uber cooperative, sweet, resilient, just a perfect patient. The chemo made her sick a couple days after treatment and her poodle hair fell out but she bounced back each time. A few days after the first treatment, she could not keep food and water down, but that seemed normal for what she was going through and I didn’t think much of it. The regurgitation of water continued, however, throughout treatment and even after they were over in mid November. She began giving herself aspiration pneumonia and was put on some pretty serious antibiotics for 3 weeks. These also bothered her belly and she wouldn’t eat and the water kept coming up. We went to more specialists, did an endoscopy and no one could explain why she was still regurging water. Throughout she was getting weaker and weaker and her beautiful body was melting away. She wasn’t eating. No matter what I offered.
Simultaneously, since the doxorubicin chemo she took had a small percentage (5%) chance of damaging the heart, we got evaluated by a cardiologist. She had a small murmur and an arrhythmia. She went on low dose heart meds in December for a slightly enlarged heart. It was classified as mild.
We continued to battle these things and that pesky original cough that still existed. The surgeon thought it was the lung tumor, the neurologist thought it was the neck tumor and now both tumors were gone and the cough persisted and there was another reason for a cough with the heart condition.
In May we went to our regular vet, who had been wonderfully supportive of both Cleo and me all this time, and did another chest x-ray checking on the pneumonia situation and there was another small mass. Devastation! The next week we had a regular check up with the cardiologist and her mildly enlarged heart in December had jumped to severe by May. Heart failure could be imminent. Devastation again!
I had done everything they said. I spared no expense. How could this be the outcome? Cleo was so loved and so well cared for and such a good patient and such a trooper through it all. The oncologist NEVER spoke to me about nutrition. The cardiologist casually suggested I give her a taurine and carnitine supplement, but that was all. These people never suggested herbs or a ketogenic diet or CBD or medicinal mushrooms or any of the other things that I now know we could have tried. I didn’t know. I did what they said. My beautiful girl died August 2, 2022 at the age of 14. She was skin and bones. The chemo had ravaged her body. That small tumor they found in May could not have been big enough already to cause her rapid decline. The cancer did not kill my baby. What the chemotherapy did to her body is what killed my perfect girl. I wish I had known then what I know now.
And so….Cleo’s Legacy was born. I don’t want anyone else to feel as alone as I did. I don’t want anyone else to feel like they don’t know where to go to get help or advice or suggestions. I don’t want anyone else to lose their beloved dog without truly trying everything there is to try; not just traditional medicine. That’s why I am here. This is Cleo’s legacy. Every person and animal that I can help with what I have spent the last few years learning will be because my Cleo lived. Every dog that eats a healthier diet or finds relief through herbs, CBD, mushrooms, homeopathy and other holistic modalities and therefore becomes healthier and happier will be because Cleo lived. Without her, none of this would have happened.
Thank you Cleo. We miss you so much.
AboutWillie
My sweet Willie was a positively beautiful soul. We called her our forever puppy. She was so cute. Something about her face was puppy-like for her whole life. Even at 12 people were always surprised to hear her age because she just gave off the vibe of a baby. It was a “mommy, I need you” vibe. She was my baby.
My 4 year old nephew once looked at her and said, “Wiwwy Winks, you not da wesponsible one.” And it was so true. Even this little boy could see that Willie was not the responsible one, that was Cleo. And as long as Cleo had everything under control, Willie was free to be the forever baby. And so it was that way. When they would smell some type of critter in the yard or heard an unusual sound outside, Cleo would go charging out to confront the mystery and let them know that this house was guarded and Willie would go to the bed and bark from inside the house. We would joke that she was yelling out to Cleo, “I got you….I’ve got your back!” But really she was basically a coward.
Willie was afraid of the dark and every single night for her whole life I had to take her out into the scary fenced-in backyard for her last pee of the night. She wouldn’t use the dog door after dark. She would come to me, growl a gentle growl and scratch one front foot on the ground. This was how she let us know that she wanted something. If it was dinner time, that meant feed me, peasants. If it was dark and past dinner time, it meant I need you to take me outside. If she needed me in the middle of the night, she would come to my side of the bed and breathe loudly. If that didn’t work, she would gently poke me with her nose (poodles do that, by the way). If that didn’t work, there would be a harder poke and a little growl. She was very gentle in how she woke me for help. I miss that.
She was bossy and pushy and demanding and so sweet and loving and, oh, so so funny! Willie made us laugh every day. She was truly a one of a kind personality. She greeted everyone with a thorough check for treats and if any were detected, a gentle poke would follow. Then…a firmer poke. Then…a little growl. Finally, a bigger growl and a scratch of the ground with her front foot. This little tantrum always made people laugh and no one ever forgot her. On the next encounter, the treats would come freely. She was wonderful. She was beautiful. She was SO cute. The loss was unexpected and so very sad. Our lives will not be the same without her.
When Willie was 4 years old, we remodeled our bathroom and the dust that was created caused her to get eosinophilic bronchopneumonia. It did not bother anyone else in the house but it did bother Willie’s lungs. She would need an inhaler twice a day for the rest of her life. That was also when we discovered that she had an overactive immune system and once the inflammatory process began in her little body, it was tough to calm it back down again. Despite this lung issue, she never had pneumonia again until the Spring of 2023 when she somehow acquired an antibiotic resistant bacterial pneumonia. This was a bacteria that is known to be a problem for people with cystic fibrosis so it is an opportunistic respiratory bacteria. I can’t imagine where she would have picked up something like that and the scenarios and questions run wild in my head. Willie’s treatment was delayed because specialists were scheduling weeks out for appointments. I called several specialty hospitals I was familiar with from what we went through with Cleo and one that I didn’t know anything about. The one that I was unfamiliar with could get us in the soonest so we took that appointment. We had a transtracheal wash to get a bacterial sample for testing and they did a scope to look into her lungs. The internal medicine doc felt that 6 of Willie’s lung lobes were clear but one looked like a “sac of infection”. Nothing we had tried so far was clearing her cough so we had to wait for the lab culture results to come back with, hopefully, an answer as to which antibiotic would work. It took 12 days before we found out! It was now the end of July and Willie had been carrying on mostly normal for the last few months, but now she was starting to refuse food due to all of the antibiotics affecting her gut microbiome. She was starting to feel bad. Then, on the one year anniversary of her sister’s death, Willie was having some trouble breathing and we brought her to the specialty hospital where they had done her scope. She had a 104 degree fever and was having a little bit of trouble breathing. They kept her overnight and the next morning the internal medicine doc called and said she and the surgeon were in agreement that the one lung lobe should come out. They felt the one antibiotic that the lab said had a chance of working was not working and that the body may have walled off that lung lobe and the antibiotic could not get in. I didn’t feel good about it but we reluctantly agreed to the surgery. My sweet Willie died 6 days later, on August 8, 2023 at the age of 12. Lab results came back on the lung lobe….no bacteria….they were wrong. We never imagined that she wouldn’t be coming home.
I was there with her when she died. We had tried to bring her home the day before but after about 3 hours it was clear that she needed to go back. She sounded like she was drowning and was struggling to breathe. We brought her back and, the next morning, again made the hour and a half drive back and were brought into the ICU to be with her for a little while. She was looking at us and her little body was fighting. She was trying. The doctor (another doctor we’d not met before) wanted to discuss options with us so they promised we could go right back in after that discussion. They wanted to try one more antibiotic but it was not going well. We decided to give it 24 hours before making any decisions. It was hours before I could get back to her. I’m not sure what the delay was but they didn’t let me back in until around 5pm. Her eyes were different. Her corneas were drying out. She wasn't there. I laid with her for a little while and told her how much she was loved and how sorry I was that this was happening. I whispered in her ear that it was OK to go to Cleo. If she could see her sister, it was OK to go. At that moment, Willie stretched out her body and looked up. I know she saw something and all of the numbers on all of the machines she was hooked up to started to drop. She was gone. I know Cleo came to get her. I saw it.
My sweet Willie should not have died. She was mismanaged in numerous ways. I don’t think it was intentional, of course, but I don’t think they paid enough attention to her. I think they were overbooked and overworked and there were just too many people minimally involved but no one really in charge of her care. Her little bottom was raw from not being cleaned enough. They told me she didn’t need her inhaler, but I think she did. I think Willie’s overactive immune system reacted to the surgery and her lungs filled with fluid. Her little legs were swollen from edema. Inflammation was running rampant in her body. I don’t know why she had a fever that day we brought her in but I wish we had not done the surgery. I wish we had not taken her there. I’m sorry Willie.
The only possible comfort comes from imagining her reunited with Cleo, whom she missed so much during her last year. Wherever they are, they are together. They loved each other so much. I love you little Will.
My sweet forever baby.
Your Dog’s Wellness
FROM CLEO’S LEGACY TO