Texas A&M vets successfully treat Houston K9 cancer patient
A Houston K9 officer recently developed cancer, but thanks to Texas A&M vets, he should live a regular life.
T-Rex the Belgian Malinois has worked as a bomb-sniffing dog for the Houston Police Department since 2015, but after developing bone cancer, Texas A&M vets feel confident he will continue to live a regular life.
T-Rex’s accomplishments include catching over a hundred criminals during his career, and patrolling Super Bowl LI and the Houston Astros 2017 World Series games, according to the Bryan-College Station Eagle newspaper.
“These dogs are like your children,” HPD Officer Paul Foster, the dog’s handler, told The Eagle. “You spend every day with your dog, and you worry about them hurting themselves.”
In December Foster took T-Rex to a Houston vet after noticing his partner’s sudden difficulty in moving quickly, where it was determined that the dog was suffering from a slow-acting bone cancer in his back left leg.
Further testing at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine determined that an amputation was necessary, which was completed earlier in the month.
On his final night on duty on December 31, T-Rex slashed a large gash in his abdomen – requiring over 40 stitches – while leaping over a chain-link fence in a successful apprehension of a suspect.
T-Rex will no longer serve as part of the department’s SWAT team, but he can continue to serve as an explosives-detection officer and appear at promotional events as a goodwilll ambassador. He now lives inside Foster’s home with a special dog bed.
Foster has not yet been assigned a new K9 SWAT partner, and told The Eagle that his patrol car has been eerily silent without a dog in the vehicle.
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Texas A&M Aggies are well-represented by Reveille the Collie, who is known as the “First Lady of Aggieland,” and appears regularly around campus. The current Reveille is Reveille IX.
The Aggies play sports in the SEC, which also includes Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi State and Tennessee, all of whom also have vet schools.