Fire dog fighting cancer to be honored
Fire Investigator Bosco sprinted back and forth across the main fire station Friday playing ball, looking nothing close to his 77 years of age. In dog years.
Bosco, an 11-year-old Black Labrador Retriever rescue dog from New York, will be the guest of honor at the Salute to Bosco Sunday at the Woodland Park pavilion.
The event is to collect supplies and donations to support local animal shelters, but, it also will give the public a last chance to meet, pet, take pictures with and get to know the fire investigator K-9 that is spending the final days of a 10-year career with the Portage Fire Department.
Less than two months after an annual recertification, Bosco was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given a prognosis of one to three months to live, said Lt. Jeremy Himan, an 18-year firefighter who works and lives with Bosco.
“It’s a very aggressive cancer,” Himan said. “(Bosco) went from a perfectly healthy dog in August to he’s going to be dead in three months, so that’s a pretty big blow.”
Bosco is one of only four fire investigator K-9s in Indiana, said Assistant Chief of EMS Dan Kodicek, and word of the dog’s illness has spread across the country, thanks in part to social media and new stories, including broadcasts on Chicago television media.
“The average story we put out, whether it’s about a fire or a crash or training, gets shared 50 to 100 times in social media world, but, (Bosco’s) story got shared about 500 times just on our Facebook page alone.”
“It’s just overwhelming, the amount of responses we’ve gotten for him,” Himan said.
The Salute to Bosco, open to the public and free, will be from 1-3 p.m. Sunday at the Woodland Park pavilion. Visitors are asked to bring donations of dog food, blankets or toys for local animal shelters. Also, Protecting K-9 Heroes, an Illinois nonprofit organization that supplies ballistic vests for K-9s, will give Bosco a gift and provide a protective vest to a Portage Police K-9 officer.
Michael Gonzalez is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.