On a beautiful summer day last year, in Branchport, near Keuka Lake, Rochester K-9 police Officer David Friedlander and his partner, a five-year old German Shepherd named Duke, gathered in a large circle with several dozen campers on the playing field of Camp Good Days and Special Times, renowned for its special programs for sick children.

Some of the children at the camp already knew Duke from previous years when he visited them along with Officer Friedlander, a volunteer lifeguard on the waterfront.

Friedlander told the attentive campers that Duke shared something very special with them. He too had been diagnosed with cancer, undergone surgery and chemotherapy. As he described Duke's treatment protocol, Freidlander mispronounced the name of one of the drugs being used in Duke's chemotherapy. A loud voice from across the wide circle was heard shouting out the correct pronunciation. As Gary Mervis, the camp's founder puts it, "Something magical happened that day."

Camp Good Days opened in 1980 following the death of Gary Mervis' daughter, Teddi, who died at age 12 following a difficult bout with a brain tumor. In memory of his daughter, and in an effort to provide a facility where children coping with cancer and other catastrophic diseases could have a typical summer camping experience of hiking, sailing, swimming, arts and crafts just like other kids, Mervis organized the non-profit foundation that supports the camp.

Every summer since Teddi's death, the camp hosts dozens of children struggling with cancer and with the debilitating and sometimes disfiguring effects of treatment. Hundreds have attended Camp Good Days. Some return every year. Some are remembered in an annual memorial service at the beginning of each season.

Because of the special dynamics observed between the campers and Duke, as well as a succession of other dogs at the camp over the years, including Sweetums, Teddi's own English Bulldog; Jimmy Buffet, a Golden Retriever; Zaharris, a Rotweiler and a Staffordshire Terrier named Jayce, this summer a unique session of the camp will include dogs with cancer and their owners.

The idea and motivation for this first-of-its-kind summer camp came in part from observing the kids opening up when in the company of the dogs about what they were going through in their treatment protocols in ways they were unable, or unwilling, to do with family or friends.

"What happens is the kids, some of whom have lost a leg, or an eye, or are in a wheelchair, tend to migrate to the dogs. You give a dog a little bit of attention and a little bit of love and it gives you back so much, no matter what you look like or how you feel," Gary Mervis says. "The magic that is between the children and the animals is something I've seen over and over again."

Camp Good Days' innovative program is enthusiastically supported by Dr. Robert Rosenthal, a Henrietta veterinary oncologist. His clients, the owners of dogs with cancer, are what motivated Rosenthal to get involved in Camp Good Days special program with dogs. But, he says, "this is a people-oriented program. It's well known that the overall medical treatment of cancer is pretty much the same for dogs and for humans. The psychosocial dynamics are exactly the same. Pet owners identify their dogs as family members," Rosenthal says, "and when a person receives a diagnosis of cancer, there is a lot of anxiety, uncertainty, a lot of apprehension. This happens to pet owners, too."

The camp's professional staff anticipate that the campers will describe to the dogs' owners what it's like going through cancer treatment, and in the process be helped to articulate some of the feelings and side effects their own treatment has caused. These are feelings they often keep bottled up. It's a win-win situation. The kids win, the pet owners win, and Rosenthal says, "The dogs are just happy to get some attention."

Rosenthal's veterinary cancer clinic is a teaching facility for interns and residents from veterinary schools all over the United States and Canada. He hopes his interns will also spend time at camp learning from the children, the dogs and their owners some valuable lessons not often taught in class.