This is the story of our little Maltipoo Oreo.  Her name was chosen long before we knew there would be a little black and white dog and before we even knew if the breeder was going to have a female with those markings, but sure enough, God knew our desire and she was born.  My first meeting with her didn't go as planned, because she was so little and so feisty and so active that when we left, I accidentally hit her with my foot and she went sliding across the floor. She came right back and put her butt in the air and thought it was play time again. We knew then she was going to be our dog.  Since that day she has been in constant motion.  She doesn't sit, stay or lie down long before she is up and looking for her toy, the famous frisbee. That toy has been the sole toy of her existence. We have to buy one every so often because she tears them up so much to the point of threads.

Her personality is one that says she is the Alpha dog, unfortunately with our beloved Mack, we didn't let her become the Alpha dog and we tried hard to tamp that behavior down. But she is the Queen Bee in the roost for sure. She quickly became the lead with most things, but she never did manage to take over the bed entirely.

She has a loving and sweet personality and she is one of those dogs that smiles at you when she is happy to see you and she grins from ear to ear and you laugh when you see her. She brings that joy into every action she exhibits and she is that whirly gig we all call the Energizer Bunny, she doesn't stop.

She loves to lick everything there is that is associated with you or your clothes, licking has been her habit since day one. She would lick and bite your fingers and toes when given the chance, but you had to yell, don't bite so she wouldn't chomp down on them.  She would pick up pine cones and carry them when the pine cone was larger than she was and we would have to make her drop them in order to come inside. She would find something on the floor and before you had a chance to stop her, down it would go and we prayed that anything she ate actually would come back out.

Such a little ball of fluff and yet she was so determined no matter what it was she wanted that she would find a way to get up on a couch, a bed, by leaping up and leaping up till she managed to make it and then would jump down without concern for height or fear of falling.

She would dance and prance, throwing her head back as if to say, well, come on let's go.  She understood all of our commands, but chose to ignore them until she was ready to do whatever you wanted of her. She would usually come on the third "come", and from then on, it was always three times to get her in the house.  She would turn her head and listen to your tone until it sounded more urgent or madder, then she would do as you asked.  What a personality.

Well she is still with us but this is a story that started the day we took her to the emergency hospital and found out she had intestinal lymphoma.

This is our journey along with her brother who is a cancer patient as well, another blog, another tale.

It will be my way of going through the process with her to tell her story and how we joined the road to wherever we are going, the unknown, a dark and unlit path...with the telling, maybe there will be a light.

Let's go Oreo, let's beat this thing we know as lymphoma and be a success story of survival and recovery. You go Little Girl, Punky Pete!