Sask. woman with terminal cancer searches for someone to take in her 3 senior dogs
CBC
Susan Dickens doesn't know how much longer she has to live, but she is certain about one thing. She needs to find a good home for her dogs, Cisco, Booda and Olive, before she dies.
Dickens was diagnosed with late-stage cervical cancer last year.
"Knowing this, I want to find a good home for my puppies."
The puppies are actually all senior dogs, aged 16, 15 and 13. Dickens said she will feel at peace once she knows that they will be going to a loving home, rather than some sort of cage or shelter.
She also wants the dogs to remain together.
Olive is an Australian Shepherd, Booda is a corgi mix and Cisco is a border collie lab mix. Dickens said Cisco became especially attached to her after her husband passed.
"I just recently went away and [Cisco] cried, whined, howled the entire time I was gone, so whoever gets my dogs has to have a bit of patience, right, because they're going to be sad," she said.
"To know they're going somewhere beautiful is all that matters, and then I will feel way better."
Sandra Archibald, who is the executive director of New Hope Dog Rescue in Saskatoon, said the dogs deserve to live out the rest of their lives together, but it could take some time to find someone willing to take them in.
"Their world is her and each other. To separate them will be traumatic for everyone," said Archibald, who also owns three dogs.
She said that it is important dogs who grew up together or are bonded be re-homed together.
However, there are challenges that come along with that.
Dogs are individuals and come with their own personality quirks, behavioural challenges, and dietary and exercise needs. More dogs also means more money. In Dickens's case, the dogs will also be in mourning and will have to adjust to the absence of their long-time human companion.
"To find a home that's able and willing to take all of this into consideration, and love them and continue to give them their best life as their current guardian wishes — it's going to take somebody with a really big heart and a very generous soul, and I really hope that person is out there."
In the four years Chelsey Simmonds has worked at the Eva Rothwell Centre, she has seen the need increase every year at the centre’s community food pantry.
CBC is once again looking to make the holiday season kind in Windsor-Essex.
Acute Care Alberta has extended its contract for another year with a private surgical facility at the centre of probes into health procurement and contracting.
As food bank use continues to climb across the province, front-line workers in Thunder Bay, Ont., are working to improve both food security and education.
More ads could soon be coming to Toronto’s subway system.
The driver wanted in connection with a fatal hit and run on Highway 401 earlier this week has been identified, police say.
There are mixed feelings about the proposed Grays Bay road and port project, among people who live in nearby communities.
WARNING: This story details allegations of child abuse and includes graphic content.
Provincial police in Lambton County have charged a 23-year-old man with second degree murder following a death investigation that began this past Saturday.
The Newfoundland and Labrador government is forming a working group to tackle what it calls systemic issues in the justice system, but answers or solutions could still be months away.
A woman has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death in a 2024 fatal hit and run in Truro, N.S., where the victim was dragged down the street, a case that went unsolved for more than six months.
A stream of people showing up to a brightly lit front porch, each holding up a bottle of wine, spirits, or beer.
Sona Lakhoyan Olivier has been excluded from Quebec’s Liberal caucus for the duration of an investigation led by the National Assembly’s ethics commissioner, the party announced Thursday.