We’ve had a lot of dogs around the Bennion Compound over the years. At one point during my childhood, there was a pack of five roaming our back yard. They’ve been German shepherds mostly, or German-shepherd mixes, as well as a couple of random mutts. All of them have possessed unique personalities, and my parents and I have loved them all while they were here and mourned them all when they died.

But none of them have generated the strong sense of attachment we collectively feel for the dog you see in that photo above. That’s Shadow, the current canine member of the Bennion clan. He’s a full-breed border collie, a breed that is reputed to be only slightly removed from wolves, genetically speaking, and among the very smartest of all dogs.

I can attest to the latter: only a few weeks after we got him, when he was still an adorably goofy-looking puppy tripping over his own feet, I watched him study the problem of how to retrieve a tennis ball from a high shelf and conclude that a nearby La-Z-Boy would make an excellent trampoline. He took a running leap at the chair and hit it square in the back so it rocked back and put him within range of the ball. He delicately took the ball in his front teeth, then the chair sprang upright again and flipped him back to the floor. He landed as clean as an Olympic gymnast and trotted off with his prize.

As the big-game hunter Muldoon says in Jurassic Park, you can see this one working things out.

Sometimes his intelligence is downright spooky, to be honest. He often seems to understand plain English sentences, spoken in a regular conversational tone. He knows which cars belong to which member of the family, so you can say, “let’s go for a ride in my car,” and he’ll go to the correct one. (He knows which car belongs to The Girlfriend, too, even though she doesn’t live on the Compound.) He hides balls all over the Compound, remembers where they are, and often refuses to play with just any old ball because he wants a specific one. He’s obsessed with those damn balls, and will literally play catch until he drops from exhaustion. And he sulks when he doesn’t get his way or when he’s left home alone… neither of which happens very often.

We brought Shadow home on Christmas Eve some eleven years ago, when he was about six weeks old. Supposedly, he was a present for my mom, but, in a fine moment of cosmic irony, he bonded with my dad instead. Now, Dad has always liked our various dogs well enough, but he’s never been terribly close with them, if that makes sense. Mom and I were the ones who mostly interacted with them, feeding them and playing with them and such. Dad was usually the disciplinarian who remained somewhat aloof. Until Shadow came along, that is.

Shadow is my Dad’s constant companion. Dad rarely goes anywhere without his border collie co-pilot. When Dad buys himself a Whopper, he has to get a second one for Shadow. Dad has yelled at me for yelling at Shadow, and has lectured me more than once on how I need to learn to be more patient. (This from a man who’s incapable of watching even half a second of a commercial before changing the channel.)

Mom and I have laughed many times at Dad’s fierce and somewhat out-of-character loyalty to that dog. And that’s why Dad is the one I’ve been feeling sorriest for since we got the news.

Last week, my parents took Shadow to the vet to investigate some mysterious swellings on his neck and behind his legs. We all had an unpleasant hunch of what those swellings meant. The hunch was confirmed on Monday when the biopsy results came back.

Shadow has lymphosarcoma, cancer of the lymphoid system. If left untreated, he has three to six months to live.

However, there’s no way my parents — my father especially — are willing to let him go without a fight. As crazy as it probably sounds, they are now scraping together the funds to pay for chemotherapy. Yes, that’s right: dogs can get cancer and be treated with chemo, just like people. Who knew? On the positive side, we’ve located a nearby veterinary clinic that specializes in canine cancers, and the doctor there has informed us that dogs generally tolerate chemo quite well, with few of the nasty side effects that plague humans. Of course, a lot of that depends on the individual dog, so there’s no way to say for certain until we actually give him the drugs.

The treatments consist of an IV drip administered once a week for the next four or five weeks, then a week or two off (Mom couldn’t remember the exact numbers), followed by another series using a slightly different cocktail of drugs. Rinse and repeat for the next nineteen weeks, after which, hopefully, Shadow’s cancer will be in remission. The treatments may begin as soon as tomorrow, depending on what Mom and Dad are setting up while I type this at work. If they work and the cancer goes into remission, my parents will have bought Shadow another eighteen months to two years of life. We’re assured those will be good years, too, with a high quality of life.

Are two more years worth the several thousand dollars that this is going to cost? I know some people, maybe even a lot of people, would say no, that he’s just a dog, for god’s sake. Just don’t say that in front of my father. Not if you value your teeth.

It’s going to be an interesting summer…