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JJ's Story

In January 2007 , Officer Serio with the Salt Lake City police department received some devastating news that his bloodhound partner, JJ, had an aggressive form of cancer in his mouth.  JJ has been serving the community as a tracking dog for over 8 years.  He has a contract to serve the Salt Lake City police department, but is owned by Officer Serio and his family.  After much testing the Serio family was told that this form of cancer is extremely aggressive and it only makes it worse when it is in the mouth.  His original prognosis was 30 to 60 days. 

After talking with their local veterinarians and researching treatment options it was discovered that there is a team of doctors in NYC at the Animal Medical Center (AMC) that have a research study for this type of cancer.  This study in NYC was the only treatment option that gave JJ an opportunity to live a longer quality life.  Officer Serio and his family decided that they were willing and able to commit themselves both financially and emotionally to traveling back and forth to NYC for the vaccination treatments over a 10 week period. 

The Serio family experienced an outpouring of support from not only the close-knit police community across the Salt Lake Valley but also from citizens, local news stations and companies willing to provide assistance.

Officer Serio was overwhelmed by this amazing support network that evolved and began to discuss with his fellow officers ways to use this outpouring of support to benefit ALL police dogs from the Salt Lake Valley that encounter expensive medical conditions.