Check Your Dog. Start at Bath Time.

If you're new here, hi — I'm Kim, and I have five Airedales. Grover was my fifth ever Airedale and the inspiration behind Happy Aire. His full story is in the previous post.

May 1st kicks off National Pet Cancer Awareness Month, which feels like exactly the right moment to talk about something I wish someone had shown me a long time ago: how to check your dog for early signs of cancer, and when to do it.

What seems obvious now did not a decade ago. I had no road map. Here's ours.

How I Found Grover's Lymphoma

I found it by accident.

It was a Saturday morning. I was petting Grover and felt something on his neck — a well-defined lump. "Huh, that's odd," I thought to myself. By Monday I had the call with my answer. Grover had canine lymphoma.

What struck me afterward, once the shock wore off, was that no one had ever told me to check my dog's lymph nodes. Not once. I'd been owning Airedales for decades. I knew the breed has a higher cancer risk. I'd been to hundreds of vet appointments and it genuinely never came up.

There's a chart at the other doctor's office. There are pamphlets everywhere reminding you to check yourself. For my dog, it just never came up. I thought: does this make me a bad pet parent? It didn't. But I still wish I'd had a road map.

Here's ours.

Where to Check — and When

Bath time is the perfect moment.

Your dog is (nominally) standing still, your hands are already all over them, and the wet coat makes it easier to feel. The main lymph nodes to know about are:

• Under the jaw

• In front of the shoulders

• Behind the front legs (armpits)

• In the groin

• Behind the knees

You're not memorizing an anatomy chart. You're just getting to know what's normal for your dog, so you notice when something changes. That's it. Two minutes is about all it takes — though that may depend on the size of your dog. 😄

(The photos on the cover are from our bath time shoot. Spoiler: one of them ends in a full Airedale shake-off at close range. Bath time is a contact sport.)

A Number Worth Knowing

According to the Veterinary Cancer Society, 1 in 4 dogs will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. For dogs over 10, it's 1 in 2.

Early detection doesn't always change the outcome — but it changes the options, the timeline, and the quality of the time you have.

Grover's cancer was caught early, and he never seemed sick at first. That small, accidental discovery on a Saturday morning gave us two more years together.

What Came From It

Ten percent of every Happy Aire sale goes to canine cancer research at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine. That commitment started with Grover and is inspired by him.

While we were going through it, Grover and I discussed our options and decided to write a book about our journey — the good, the funny, the bad, and the ugly — in the hope of helping others. (Yes, I talk to my dogs. And if you're reading this, there's a good chance you do too.)

Our goal was and is to provide insight and comfort. For me, it's a true dog adventure filled with smiles, laughs, warm hearts, wet noses, and a few cocktails.

I'm not a vet. This isn't medical advice. It's just what I wish someone had shown me before February 2015.

Check your own. Check your dog. Start at bath time.

—Kim Opdyke  💗