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Instead, Scout was brought to the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, where he underwent chemotherapy and radiation to reduce the size of his tumor. It worked, and the tumor shrank progressively to 10% of its original size — and is now almost entirely gone.

David MacNeil, the founder and CEO of WeatherTech, decided to use his company’s 2020 Super Bowl ad to thank the doctors at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine for saving his dog Scout’s life.

WeatherTech CEO David MacNeil is grateful that vets saved his dog from a deadly form of cancer. He bought a Super Bowl ad to thank the veterinary school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

When David MacNeil learned last summer that his golden retriever Scout had an aggressive blood vessel cancer and wasn’t likely to live out the month, MacNeil was devastated. On the advice of Scout’s primary care veterinarian, MacNeil took his dog to the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, where Scout’s hemangiosarcoma was treated aggressively with chemotherapy, radiation therapy and immunotherapy, according to an article on the university’s website.

This Sunday, Super Bowl viewers will get to know more about Scout, the star of WeatherTech’s 2019 Super Bowl ad, and his battle with cancer. You see, Scout is a “lucky dog,” as he had only a 1% chance of surviving a tumor that developed on his heart. It was because of cutting-edge research at the University of Wisconsin that the golden retriever beat the disease. Scout’s story will potentially help fund further cancer research conducted by UW’s School of Veterinary Medicine.

MacNeil's family took Scout to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where an intense, experimental procedure consisting of chemotherapy, radiation and immunotherapy shrank the tumor to nearly nothing, according to the university.

David MacNeil, who is the founder and CEO of WeatherTech, a car accessories company, took Scout, who serves as his company's unofficial mascot, to the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine. The dog had a one percent chance of survival, but doctors at the veterinary school treated Scout with aggressive chemotherapy and radiation that nearly eradicated his tumor.

A dog named Scout being treated for cancer at the UW School of Veterinary Medicine will be featured in a Super Bowl ad on Sunday, February 2nd.

But MacNeil, who had lost three other dogs to cancer before adopting Scout, refused to accept that diagnosis. On the advice of his local vet, he rushed his dog up from WeatherTech’s Bolingbrook, Illinois, headquarters to the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus in Madison the very next morning. There, doctors at the School of Veterinary Medicine began an aggressive attack on the tumor that had invaded Scout’s body.