Day 14 was a memorable day on The Dog Cancer Ride Across America. Our arrival in Boise, the first city since we left Portland – which meant our first chance to stock up on things we’ve been missing. So while I was riding through Boise, today was supposed to be a shopping day for my support team, Ian and Nikki.
But first, we had some friends to meet.
The Dog Cancer Ride Across America has an amazing friend who lives in Boise. He met us through his dog, “Tiggerby Happy Mac”, an adorable 11 year old Scottie who was diagnosed with cancer in November 2007. At the time, the vets told Ken that Tiggerby Happy Mac had only 30-days to live. But Ken is not the type to give up easily. So he made did his research, came across my Curing Canine Cancer website, and found a wonderful holistic vet in town named Shauna Ault.
Well thanks to the things Ken learned, and the wonderful care Tiggerby Happy Mac got from Dr. Ault, I’m proud to say that today we got to Tiggerby Happy Mac meet in person, still happy and frolicking, 8 months after the vets told Ken to start making funeral arrangements.
But first we met with Dr. Ault herself at her office in Nampa, Idaho (just outside of Boise). She shared with us some of the amazing work she was doing to help dogs (and cats and horses) fight cancer. She’s got some cool, cutting edge machines and techniques, that help her determine the exact treatments that each individual dog will respond to best in the fight against cancer. And you can see from the stories she tells (and her experience with Tiggerby Happy Mac) that these things really work. She even showed us “before and after” pictures of a 14 year old cat she had treated, whose nose was almost falling off from the same type of cancer my dog Marty had, who is now – 4 years later – living out the elder stages of his life showing no signs of cancer whatsoever.
We recorded our interview with Dr. Ault but barely had time to scratch the surface of the information she wanted to share. So she’s agreed to sit down with me in a few weeks and do an hour long “Live Expert Interview” over the telephone for my Curing Canine Cancer book and bonus package. I’ll send out notices to everyone on the Ride Report mailing list to make sure you can be there (and ask Dr. Ault any questions) when the call happens.
And then, as we were getting ready to leave Dr. Ault’s office, a wonderful thing happened. Ian pulled me aside and told me “you’re not going to believe this – he did it!”
Remember I told you, our friend Ken McDevitt is not one to give up easily. And a few weeks ago Ken decided that we needed to be interviewed by the local media as we rolled our way through Boise – so he called and sent e-mail messages to every newspaper and television station in town, letting them know we were coming. And for weeks he was ignored – no response at all. Nobody in the press seemed to care. But Ken kept plugging away – actually calling to berate some members of the media for not caring enough about dogs and this important issue… – And on this beautiful Saturday morning in Boise, Ken decided to give it one final try. He went back onto our website, copied the entire “Media” page information and sent out one final e-mail to every reporter he could think of in the Boise area.
And when Ian pulled me aside in Dr. Ault’s office, he told me… “We’ve gotta go – we’ve got an interview with Allison Warren of Fox 12 News at Nine”. Ken had done it. And we were going to be “On the Air” in Boise.
Needless to say I was pretty excited – and nervous (it was our first TV interview after all. I actually misspelled my name on camera – somehow deciding it was spelled – S – c – h – “Capital N” – e – c – k” – don’t ask me where that one came from (but my support team, Ian and Nikki had a good time mocking me for it). But despite my nerves the interview went really well – Allison was a true dog lover, and we got great video of me riding through town and even shots of Angie wagging her tail and playing in the parking lot where we shot the interview.
And finally, when the cameras were packed away, it was off to meet Ken himself – the man of the hour – and his amazing Dog Cancer Hero – Tiggerby Happy Mac. Ken and his wife were wonderful – opening their home to us for a barbeque dinner and a night of stories and friendship. Ken shared with us his love and devotion for Tiggrby Happy Mac and all he’d been doing to make sure his boy would be around, happy and healthy, for as long as possible. He shared his gratitude to us, for all we were doing to help dogs fight cancer, and promised to work with us side-by-side to make sure we got the message out to as many dog owners as possible.
And then Ken shared with me another passion of his, one I hadn’t known about before. Apparently, when Ken was a child, he and another friend (both 5 years old) were playing under a car, when the owner of the car got in, turned on the ignition, and accidentally ran over Ken’s 5 year old friend, killing him. Since then, Ken has been on a mission to prevent these types of accidents which apparently kill hundreds of young children each year. Now, I know how sad it is to have to deal with the loss of a pet to a powerful disease like cancer, but I cannot even imagine the pain that a mother or father must feel if they back up their car and find that they accidentally killed their own child.
Ken is so passionate about getting families to safeguard their cars, that he started his own business – called Mobile Vision Boise – to help parents equip their cars with appropriate safety devices to make sure this never happens to their child. Not only that, he does his best to pass along this equipment to families at wholesale, to make sure these critical safety devices are available at a reasonable cost to everyone. If you have young children – or if there are young children who play in your area – I encourage you to visit Ken at www.mobilevisionboise.com <http://www.mobilevisionboise.com>, to learn more about these product and how you can save the life of a child. Just tell him that Ted at The Dog Cancer Ride Across America sent you…
Oh, and if you want to check us out On Air – you can watch us on the Fox 12 News website at – http://www.fox12boise.com/Global/story.asp?S=8447382&nav=menu439_2_15 <http://www.fox12boise.com/Global/story.asp?S=8447382&nav=menu439_2_15> – just click on the Raising Awareness of Dog Cancer “video” link right under the “Cross Country Bike Ride for Dog Cancer” headline.
Bye for now – and we’ll see you “On the Air” – on Fox 12 News at Nine, Boise and beyond.
- Ted Schneck
