Puppy Up takes healing path to Vegas

This is a story about a boy and his dog, as all good stories should be.

The boy was born and raised in Texas, the son of a doctor.

He grew into a businessman.

For a while, the boy-turned-businessman had a pretty girlfriend who liked dogs, and so Malcolm joined the family.

Malcolm was a Great Pyrenees, a giant, white, fluffy mass of joy.

But soon Malcolm got sick, and the man became sad, and then everything changed forever.

"A simple decision made in a flash," the man said Tuesday, reflecting on his love for Malcolm even after the pretty girl was gone, "has had such a profound effect on my whole way of life."

The man is Luke Robinson, who turned his sadness at Malcolm's death into a cause. With his other two dogs, also Great Pyrenees, he walked from Austin, Texas, to Boston, where he'd once lived.

It was a distance that stretched 2,000 miles. He figured he would raise a little publicity, maybe some awareness about canine cancer.

But soon, he became so involved that the cause became his life. He started a charity, 2 Million Dogs, to raise money for research into cancer, in both dogs and humans. He chose that name because he figured if he can get two dogs to walk 2,000 miles, why not go for 2 million?

Robinson, 41, is in Las Vegas this week promoting a charity golf tournament scheduled for Thursday and a walk through Bruce Trent Park set for November.

The walk, which is called Puppy Up (like Man Up, but for dogs), is being coordinated by Rhondda Atlas, a local woman whose own dog story involves the strangest, saddest coincidence you'll hear about today.

It is weird, sometimes, the way life's out-of-control, random nature can lead to things like this.

Take Atlas.

She was a working mom with her own beloved Great Pyrenees, named Ace.

She was in Boston with her husband, toddler Owen and, of course, Ace.

This is where Atlas met two other Great Pyrenees. She approached, naturally, because the breed is uncommon and their owners form a rare club.

The dogs, Hudson and Murphy, were accompanied by 500 people as they completed the final mile of their 2,000-mile walk from Texas.

Robinson and Atlas talked for a bit. Later at home she followed his Facebook updates.

She followed as Murphy, too, got cancer. She followed and felt terrible when Murphy died.

And then?

And then life was normal and life was good until Ace got cancer; until Ace died. That's when her world turned upside down, and she knew she had to do something besides just follow.

She knew she had to lead.

By then, Robinson's charity had grown. His Puppy Up walks spread across the country, with 40 this year.

Atlas volunteered to start Puppy Up in Las Vegas.

"Everyone told me it's too hard to get Las Vegas involved," she said.

But she did it, anyway. The first walk will be Nov. 3 at Bruce Trent Park.

The point is to raise money for cancer research that may benefit both dogs and humans.

Robinson said the group has already funded important cancer research - $50,000 for a Princeton University study comparing breast cancer in dogs and women.

Dogs are an ideal model to study because they get cancer naturally - about one in four dogs eventually gets it - and the cancers are often the same ones humans get.

The National Cancer Institute's Center for Cancer Research has created a coalition of veterinary centers to develop treatment and prevention strategies that can be applied to humans.

"My work is far from over," Robinson said.

He is touring the country right now, calling it the Summer of Murphy.

He figures that if he keeps going - if he keeps raising money for research - maybe one day the doctors will figure out how to stop this thing.

Because that's what he's after. He said his group isn't looking for treatment, new drugs, that sort of thing. It wants to beat cancer, to discover why it happens so it can be stopped before it gets started.

Robinson calls that the "big fish" because that's what matters the most.

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.