By Simran Khanuja
When Mary and Paul Brinkman adopted Gracie, a little grey dog from an Alabama rescue, they were immediately drawn to her calm and gentle nature. After taking obedience classes, Gracie quickly transitioned from a rescue pup to a certified therapy dog, spending her days at Jackson Elementary School in Jackson, Wisconsin, where children in special education classes read her stories.
But in 2025, the dog who spent her life comforting others faced a devastating diagnosis. What began as small skin lesions worsened into draining sores, followed by changes in her left eye, a limp, and a decrease in her energy level and appetite. Tests performed by her local veterinarian confirmed the presence of blastomycosis, a fungal infection. The disease is often associated with areas near water or damp, recently disturbed soil.
“Gracie lives in a quiet neighborhood that is not near any bodies of water,” says Claire Ludwig, a small animal internal medicine resident with at UW Veterinary Care (UWVC). “Her story is a reminder that blastomycosis can affect dogs in a wide range of environments and should remain on owners’ radars even in less typical settings.”
By the time Gracie arrived at UWVC, the blastomycosis had spread to her lungs, bones, skin, and lymph nodes. One of the most serious complications was severe inflammation in her left eye, which resulted in permanent vision loss.
“Despite how extensive her disease was, what stood out most to our team was Gracie’s incredibly sweet and happy personality,” Ludwig says. “Even while she was clearly not feeling well, she remained bright, affectionate, and eager to interact with everyone who cared for her.”
In addition to receiving life-saving care, Gracie became the first patient to enroll in a clinical trial studying how UWVC’s advanced PET/CT imaging technology can help assess blastomycosis. Gracie was an ideal candidate because of her stability and the extent of her disease, Ludwig says.
“As we steered her individual care, we realized Gracie’s case provided the opportunity to better understand how blastomycosis spreads within the body and how we can more effectively monitor response to treatment in future patients,” Ludwig says.
While conventional testing methods — urine antigen tests — can help detect blastomycosis, they have limitations in showing exactly where the fungus has spread. This lack of precision is a major hurdle, especially since treatment can be expensive, take months, and the disease has a 20% recurrence rate, even when tests come back negative. By using PET/CT imaging, the UWVC team hopes to find a more accurate way to monitor recovery and decide exactly when it is safe to stop therapy.
In Gracie’s case, PET/CT identified additional inflammatory lesions in her digits, muscles, and limbs. For the Brinkmans, the decision to join the trial was a natural extension of Gracie’s personality and her history of helping others.
“Gracie has always been a kind, caring helper dog,” Mary Brinkman says. “This is her way of helping others of her own species to get better treatment for this horrible disease.”
Today, Gracie is back to some of her favorite activities: watching squirrels and taking walks in her neighborhood. Though she now navigates the world with one eye, her care team believes what she has been through has only added to her mission as a service dog. And as she prepares to return to the classroom, her journey underscores the impact one small dog can have on her community and the future of veterinary medicine.
“With the changes to her left eye — and the likelihood that it will be surgically removed — Gracie now has the opportunity to show the children she works with that it’s okay to look different and that diversity is a beautiful thing,” Ludwig says.