this is not a fake story

Obviously peanuts are not a problem in this part of the world, In Canada you cannot even take anything related to nuts to school,university or bring them on Air Canada which is a nut free airlne. You should read the story about the young girl who just bought a dog to sniff out nuts so she can go to grade one restaurant, other than her grandmother's seafood shack on Campobello Island. And she has yet to experience many other joyful rites of youth: unfettered trick-or-treating, sleepovers with friends, slices of velvety birthday cake with mounds of frosting.

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Photo: Marty Klinkenberg/TelegraFrom left, Amber Foster, five-year-old Ramsey, Justin Foster, eight-year-old Kamden and 13-year-old Rylee Foster at home on Campobello Island. Severely allergic to peanuts, Ramsey will soon become the first person in Canada to get a peanut-sniffing labradoodle. The family has raised $13,000 of the $20,000 it needs to acquire the service dog from trainers in Colorado in May. Photo: Marty Klinkenberg/Telegraph-Journal Photo: SubmittedGus the labradoodle. Photo: Submitted Photo: Marty Klinkenberg/TelegraRamsey Foster, 5, is excited about soon becoming the first person in Canada to receive a peanut-sniffing labradoodle. Her family, from Campobello, has raised $13,000 of the $20,000 it needs thus far. Photo: Marty Klinkenberg/Telegraph-Journal "Parties are really hard," her mother, Amber Foster, says, sitting in her living room at Wilsons Beach, her youngest child a blur. One minute Ramsey is colouring, the next she is playing with her cat, then she rumbles in madcap circles on a plastic scooter. "We have never let her go to a birthday party alone, and it is very rare that she will get a treat bag and be able to have anything in it.

"You feel guilty saying, 'Sorry, honey, you can't have any of that,' but we just can't chance it."

Although Justin Foster has food allergies, he and his wife had no reason to suspect Ramsey was similarly stricken. Her siblings - Kamden, 8, and Rylee, 13, aren't allergic.

But when she was 18 months old, Ramsey nearly dropped dead in her high chair after eating a peanut butter square.

"She stopped breathing and turned purple," Amber Foster says. "Her ears started to swell so badly she looked deformed. Her face blew up like a balloon, and her airways closed off."

Rushing through the hospital doors with Ramsey in their arms, the Fosters were met by a nurse. Ramsey stayed for three days until she was stable enough to go home - and the Fosters' lives have been changed ever since.

One of more than 360,000 Canadians to have a peanut allergy, Ramsey is so severely afflicted that just the whiff of one can send her into anaphylactic shock. She has had a half-dozen allergic reactions since she entered kindergarten last fall at the Campobello Island Consolidated School, which has a sign at the entrance declaring it a nut-free zone.

"We debated a long time whether to even send her to school," Amber Foster says. "We considered home-schooling. There were a lot of sleepless nights, and meetings with school officials. I was stressed out all summer."

At all times, Ramsey carries an epinephrine needle in a pouch around her waist. Her parents have pagers - cellphone service is spotty on Campobello Island - and are called to school the minute anyone suspects Ramsey might be having an allergic reaction. Out of 30,000 food-related emergency room visits in Canada each year, 90 per cent involve peanuts.

"Sometimes it is hard to put a finger on exactly what causes it," says Amber, who works in the lone pharmacy on Campobello, an isolated spit on the Bay of Fundy east of Eastport, Me. "It could be something as simple as a classmate having peanut butter toast in the morning and not brushing their teeth thoroughly enough.

"Every day is a scare and a struggle."

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In three months, Justin and Amber Foster hope Ramsey will be able to play for the first time like any other child.

If all goes well, the pint-sized New Brunswicker will get a new leash on life thanks to Gus, a hypoallergenic Australian labradoodle who is one of only about