2-year-old girl gets a new best friend

AURORA - A program involving prison inmates training shelter dogs has changed the life of a 2-year-old girl who is legally blind.

Krysta Hubbard is fighting brain cancer. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor in July and underwent surgery to remove it. The tumor was the size of a golf ball.

It left Krysta legally blind.

Her mother, Shannell Hubbard, still takes her to The Children's Hospital in Aurora every six weeks to be examined and have her blood drawn. Since the family lives in Riverton, Wyoming, it's a six-and-a-half-hour drive each way.

Shannell does not complain about the drive, except to say it is tough for a 2-year-old to be in the car that long.

Now the girl has a new best friend to cheer her up and help her get around the house. The friend is a black Labrador named "Lucky Bug," and came from the prison trained K-9 Companion program.

Inmates train shelter dogs and learn new skills while giving shelter dogs a better chance of being adopted. The adoption fee is $450.

That's a lot of money for a family already dealing with mounting medical bills.

The Hubbards are finding help from an unlikely source: a 9-year-old girl named Allison Winn.

The girl never met the family before Tuesday. She does know what it feels like to be a child with cancer.

She is also a patient at Children's and was diagnosed with a brain tumor two years ago.

She's had her family and her dog Coco to help her deal with the disease. Coco came from the K-9 Companion Program.

Now that Allison is doing better, she is trying to help other kids like herself.

"I wanted another kid in the hospital to have a dog," Allison said.

She came up with idea to bake and sell dog biscuits to raise money to help another family pay for the K-9 Companion adoption fee. She calls the treats "Stink Bug Dog Biscuits."

The logo is a drawing she made of a stink bug, a term she used to describe her chemotherapy treatments.

Allison was there at the Denver Women's Correctional Facility on Wednesday when Krysta selected her dog.

Krysta's mother says the adoption will change her daughter's life.

"She loves dogs, so she's getting a companion dog, so she can have a buddy," Hubbard said. "So she will always have someone there for her, which is awesome. Going through what she has to go through, it's pretty amazing to be able to get this opportunity. And to see a little girl you know, helping a little girl is a great feeling."

The Prison Trained K-9 Companion Program is funded by the adoption fees.

For more information about the program, go to:
http://www.cijvp.com/serviceproviders/puppy/index.html?intro.