Brixie was rescued from a Taiwan junk yard as a 3-month-old pup. Adopted from the For Love and Second Chances foundation, we picked up our adopted fur child from the SFO International Airport late at night surrounded by Taiwanese Americans awaiting their families after a long flight.

From the start, Brixie was a spunky puppy. Her expressive and lively personality kept us on our toes. But for the next ten years, Brixie brought more love and joy not only to us but to everyone she met. She loved people, was always the life of the party and stole your heart every time she looked at you with her big brown eyes.

Brixie was always a great big sister to our second fur child Charleigh Buckets. While Brixie was almost human-like (she loved standing on two paws to be like her parents) and very in touch with human emotion, her sister Charleigh was a dogs-dog, always getting muddy, chasing squirrels and fearful of the local hot air balloons. Brixie always took care of Charleigh’s anxiety like a good sister.

One day in November of 2022, Brixie was noticeably not herself. We took her to the vet and an hour later, Brixie was undergoing emergency surgery. She had a tumor on her spleen that had split and was bleeding into her abdomen. They removed her spleen and two tumors. As Brixie recovered, we learned that the tumors were malignant and because the tumors had bled into her body, it was only a matter of time until the cancerous cells spread throughout her body.

Brixie was set to undergo five chemo-therapy treatments, followed by three vaccine shots. Then we would hope for the best. The first two treatments went great. Brixie seemed to have more energy than ever. We actually nicknamed her “Brixie Buttons” because we thought she acting like she was aging in reverse. Then the day of the third chemo treatment arrived and Brixie took a severe turn for the worse. The cancer reappeared in her liver and she was bleeding again into her abdomen.

We were not going to give up hope. Brixie was a fighter and we weren’t going to give up on her. You could see in her eyes that she couldn’t bear the thought of our family going on without her. The next six weeks were a roller coaster of highs and lows.