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Photos: Dog Spends Dying Days On Road Trip Across Country
There's a terminally-ill dog named Poh whose owner recently took him on a seven-week road trip across the country so they could have a bucket-list adventure in the 16-year-old pooch's final days.
Thomas Neil Rodriguez, a DJ from New York City who goes by the moniker DJ Neil Armstrong, started his 35-city adventure with his fiancée, Yuko Ogino, and Poh, who's believed to be a half pit bull and half Labrador retriever mix, on March 6, ABC News reports. Rodriguez adopted Poh when the dog was just eight-weeks-old and sadly found out earlier this year that Poh had kidney failure.
"[About a month later, a vet] found a softball-sized tumor on his liver and multiple tumors around his kidneys," Rodriguez told TODAY. "Essentially, at that point, that's when he got kind of a time limit on his life. I asked, 'What are we saying here? Do I have a year with him?' And the doctor's reply was, 'Well, he may have days [to live].'"
The couple decided to embark on this adventure with the dog, whom Rodriguez describes as "very loving, very loyal," and documented their trip through photos they posted on Instagram. Their account has since become popular with over 86,000 followers now. Normally you'll see in their feed snapshots of Poh in front of famous landmarks, oftentimes sitting in a green wagon, with updates on his health. They stopped by the Goonies house in Oregon, the Las Vegas strip in Nevada, and even Walter White's house from Breaking Bad in New Mexico. The goal was to make it to California so Poh could swim on the West Coast beaches.
"I initially wanted to get him to the Pacific ocean," Rodriguez told ABC News. "I have always wanted him to swim."
When they arrived in Los Angeles about two months ago, they hit up the Hollywood Sign, Hollywood Walk of Fame, TCL Chinese Theater, Venice Beach, and Roy Choi's POT restaurant at the Line Hotel. They moved around SoCal, seeing a San Diego beach sunset, checking out Randy's Donuts in Long Beach, and visiting roadside dinosaur and monster attractions in Cabazon, Calif. and Borrego Springs, Calif.
Here are some more snapshots of the cool places Poh visited around the country:
The family is back in New York now.