Chemotherapy in dogs

R

Rob M

Member
Well, unfortunately the Christmas and New Years season was not a good one for us, we found out that our 9yr old pup has come down with Cancer, Lymphoma to be specific. Its sad that my wife and I were laying in our bed a month ago and I referred to our oldest dog (14yrs) that he is really starting to look old and the inevitable would soon be coming, we then thought about our 12yr old dog who recently had her eye removed due to Rocky Mountain Fever and what her life expectancy would be. I then said of my 9yr old dog, "its going to kill me when he goes, but at least hes still young".

I never would have thought weeks later, I would be sitting in a vet talking about the future of my 9yr old dog. Ive put down many dogs over the years, even a 2yr old pup who was in extreme kidney failure. Its hard, but all my previous pets were in a lot of pain and suffering and it made it somewhat easier to send them over the bridge. I think also, I have never had the bond and companionship that I have had with the 9yr old dog, we traveled the country competing and traveled everywhere together. Short ride, long ride he was always the co-pilot. Hess the only dog I've had that follows you everywhere, that every time you sit down or lie down he is there cuddled up in your shoulder. Hes is that once in a lifetime dog that I will never have again.

What is making this extremely difficult is that, Rush is in great spirits, hes eating more than ever, hes got loads of energy and wants to play with all of his new toys, still wants to cuddle up with you, still plays with the other dogs, etc.. His only issue is the swollen leg. He is still our happy little boy that has no idea what is going on.

Our initial vet said we should remove his leg and hope for the best, maybe he gets another year. My reaction there was, by removing his leg its downtime for him for a month while he recovers, it will also drain his immune system and energy to put into recovery. Energy that he needs to help fight the cancer. So we went to an oncologist for their opinion and he did not want to entertain removing his leg for the same reasons. He felt that the tumors are likely stage 2-3 cancer and there is no hope for surgery or beating the cancer since it is definitely in Rush's lymph nodes. He did say that due to Rush's high energy and good spirit and that it was lymphoma that his chances to prolonging his life and happiness were fairly good on IV Chemo treatments. With his current medication of steroids, antihistamine and pain reliver Rush is looking at maybe a month at best of life left and will likely rapidly deteriorate. The Oncologist feels that going the chemo route, we should be able to get the swelling down in his leg and give him a solid 8-12months of life expectancy on chemo. Essentially the first 4 weeks would be an IV chemo injection once a week, then month 2 would be a shot every other week and would remain this way until the chemo no longer fights the cancer.

1) I always told myself I would never be one of those dog owners that selfishly puts their dog through chemo just to keep them around longer. I've seen my father in law go through chemo and it was brutal on him and the family and the same token, all it did was buy him another year of life expectancy.
2) The vet tells me that wont be the cash, Rush may get some diarrhea or vomitting after a treatment but the doses are low and he should be a happy dog between treatments.
3) Web articles and a friend of mine seem to suggest they would never put a dog through chemo and that the dog was not the same on chemo, between being sick and lethargic it was just rough on the dog all together and they said they would never do it again.
4) Some others I have spoken with said it was the best thing they have ever done, they got another solid 10-12months (some 16-18months!) of life out of their dog where they were still able to run, jump play and spoil their dogs. Yes its not all roses as their are times when their dogs were sick for a few days, but they had no hesitation of doing it again.

I know that with the way Rush is right now, its not his time yet. He is still so full of life and wants nothing more than to be with everyone and enjoy life. Though do I really want to bring him through Chemo. Is it fair for him, that I do not know. The Oncologist told me that I should try it for a month and see how the dog reacts and if I want to stop it I can at anytime. But how do I just stop something that may be working well? I say this because of the cost as well, it isn't terribly expensive but it sure isn't cheap to do a chemo treatment. If Rush were to respond well and he were to receive chemo for a year, the price really adds up! But at the end of the chemo, what did I really do? I prolonged the inevitable, I didn't make a change, I didn't fix the problem, I just put a bandaid on it.

I did read an interesting article today that a vet had wrote that frustrated him. He said most of his pet patients that have cancer, the owners say they just want to keep the dog out of pain and live out their days with the best quality of life as possible. The author then recommended Chemo. Similar to what Im saying above the author said most responses he got were "people who give chemo to their dogs are crazy" or "ill never be one of those selfish people who subject their dogs to chemo", etc. But the author said, put by providing chemo to your pet, you are making the comfortable, you are helping give them a quality of life to go with dignity, this is medicine that would help your dog. Why would you not do it and decide to let your dog perish rapidly?

Anyway, I have no idea what I want to do and just looking for anyone's experience with chemo in their dogs. Did you think it was worth it? Would you do it again? How was the dog's quality of life? We did give Rush a chemo injection yesterday just to see and at least start while my wife and I determine our options.
 
Bob M, give me a shout. I'm a vet. Went through lymphoma in my own dog a few years ago.

I'll pm you my number
 
Rob,

First, I am terribly sorry to hear that you are having to deal with this. It sucks and is heart breaking.

My lab, Drake, had to be put down in May because of an aggressive Mast Cell Tumor on his face that ultimately spread to his lymph nodes. Drake was 11 and I was told I had six months at best. Because of the location of his tumor, the vet told me we could do the surgery but there was no way to guarantee clean margins because of the lack of tissue on his face so no guarantee that it wouldn't come back. We talked about chemo and radiation therapy. The radiation therapy is very concentrated and in small locations and they have a lot of luck with it, but it is exceedingly expensive and it was three hours away from me. The chemo, he told me, was going to be a life long thing. No guarantee on how much longer he would live but basically he would get one set of chemo until it was no longer working, then move to another and then move to another (gradually getting stronger drugs). It wasn't cheap either and would only get more expensive as we moved up and through stronger drugs.

I can tell you that it was an incredibly tough decision for me to have to make. But I thought about Drake's overall health. He also suffered from arthritis and it was getting worse. Not crippling yet but each day after hunting you could tell he hurt. Drake was diagnosed with the cancer in late February. Early February was his last hunting trip, even if he had not gotten the cancer, it was time for retirement.

I ended up going the route of as long as he is happy and pain free, then enjoy each day you can with him. I got three more months with him. To his very last day, he was wiggly to chase dummies and ready to scarf down anything and everything I gave him. He was a happy boy.

If Drake had been younger and in better health, I would have looked harder at chemo and possibly even radiation therapy.

I have known people who had dogs that had poor reactions to chemo. And others that you could hardly tell the dogs were on chemo. You won't know until you try it.

So I suppose I'd look at Rush's overall picture. How is he healthwise other than the lymphoma? Do you think you'll get to hunt him again or is he retired? If Rush reacts poorly to chemo, how will that affect his quality of life? Will he go back to being a happy, energetic boy once the chemo wears off some? How often will he be sick vs happy/energetic? I know you won't know the answers to any of that until you try but if he is sick more often than he isn't, is it fair to prolong his life another 8 to 12 months where he is sick 5 days out of 7?

As far as "why would you not do it and let your dogs perish rapidly"......It seems like the vet is assuming that everyone can afford it. If money were no object, then I would agree with the vet. Unfortunately, we aren't always in a position to add $1000 a month to our budgets for chemo (I certainly wasn't for many multiple months) for something that won't really change the end result.

I wish I had better answers for you on this. It was certainly one of the hardest decisions I have ever made in my life.

Good thoughts are being sent your way for you, your wife and Rush.

Dani
 
I knew I shouldn't have read this. 4.5 years ago we went through the exact same thing, 9 year old Lab and a diagnosis of lymphoma. The heart ache, the question of Chemo, for an additional year (including an additional hunting season) Vs comfort drugs and acquiring another pup. Add in that I had gone through 6 months of chemo infusion myself, just a couple of years before Marsh's diagnosis. Let me think on this and I maybe able to present my thoughts more coherently later but for now let me say that while the pup is a family member, he is still just a dog. He lives in the moment and doesn't understand suffering now for a better tomorrow. The decision facing you is very tough and doesn't have a right or wrong answer. Barb and I agreed to let nature run it's course and get a new puppy fast. Do I miss Marsh, hell yes, but either way he'd have been long gone by now, and I believe we minimized his suffering. Our thoughts and sympathies are with you, yours and especially the pup.
Scott
 
Rob: I have a neighbor who had a 10 yr. old male Boxer that came down with prostate cancer, which is rare in dogs. Vet told him 2-3 month survival rate without chemo. He went ahead with chemo, his dog survived almost a year. Not sure about the quality of the dogs life, but my neighbor told me the chemo was expensive.

Ken Zaborski
 
Sorry I have not posted any replies and I greatly thank all of those who have reached out through a PM.

This whole thing has certainly been a roller coaster. I spoke to D.Hinton at length on Friday while in the car doing some scouting as I felt it would be good to get myself out this past Saturday to clear my head and hopefully shoot some ducks. He told me all about his experiences with chemo treatments and I decided to continue down the chemo path through the first chemo protocol and that when the chemo stopped working or Rush's health and energy started to deplete I would stop the chemo. My mind was set to give Rush the best chance of quality of life and not worry about quantity.

On my way back home Friday night, my wife called to call me and tell me that Rush was in a lot of pain and not doing well. I heard him non-stop whimpering on the phone and it was heart breaking. She called our chemo vet and the vet advised to give him Tramadol (luckily we had some in the cabinet as weve been through this with other dogs) and luckily it put Rush right to sleep. We both thought to ourselves the time is getting close and to give Rush the best weekend possible. The vet advised to give us at least the weekend before we made any decisions to put Rush down.

As unhappy as I have been about the very warm temperatures, I was greatly happy to have 65* temps and sun on Saturday which allowed us to spend a lot of time outside, we took him for a quick ride in the side-by-side, brought him down to the barn to see the horses, spent a lot of time outside with me doing yard work and it was a great day. Unfortunately about 6 hours since his last Tramdol, Rush started to get very antsy and uncomfortable so we went inside and gave him another Tramdol earlier than the 8hour duration we had planned on. Rush whimpered, couldn't lie down and would sit still for about 4 hours. 2 Tramdol pills, his normal Gabapentin and Benadryl pills. By wife ended up giving him another Bendaryl thinking it would make it sleepy, but I think the double dose just counteracted eachother and gave him more energy. At about 8:40pm after trying to get Rush to lay down, I walked into our bedroom and told my wife that it was time and he was in pain and the meds were just not working. I couldn't watch my buddy in this pain. For some reason, I wasn't sad, I felt calm knowing we tried and he would be out of his pain. My selfishness couldn't matter to me anymore. My wife asked if we could wait until 9pm just to see. So I made Rush a New York Strip steak, he ate it and finished it off with some Puppy Ice Cream. By that time, Rush was a happy boy and back to chewing his bone and slept all through the night. We thought to ourselves, maybe todays activities were just too much for his swollen leg and we over did it. Either way he was still was it.

On Sunday I made sure to spend every waking minute with Rush, we had 70* weather yesterday so we slept outside in the grass for hours, spoiled him with treats and hoped he would play with his toys but he was so tired that he just laid out in the sun all day. I was happy he was not in any pain, but he was a zombie and wanted only to sleep. I thought to myself is the cancer finally shutting down his body? Or is this the after affects of all of the pain meds we had given him the night before or was it simply a lazy Sunday to take in the sun. He went in for lunch and had a huge burst of energy humping and licking his older brother. We then finished up the day sitting in the local park to watch all the geese land in the newly planted hay field. I fed him piece by piece the remainder of his New York Strip steak and watched the sun set. It was a great night, but then it finally hit me, on the way back in the truck with him. This is it, each hour is a blessing and each dog kiss may be his last. I broke down terribly before I want back into the house. Luckily we had some friends coming over for Sunday dinner so it kept my mind off of it and Rush hung out in the kitchen with us all evening, still sleeping. Luckily last evening, his pain was managed due to us doing not much more than sleeping in the sun yesterday. We laid down to sleep, with me holding his paw I broke down again knowing I may only have a matter of days at this point. He slept like a baby all night.

This morning morning, although still sleepy he ate his usual big breakfast and was rolling around on his back scratching numerous times this morning. Im working from home today and hes been at my feet sleeping peacefully all morning so far.

So, that is where we are at this point, day by day. Rush's next chemo treatment is supposed to be this coming Friday morning. We have not decided if we will continue with the chemo or if we will just nature takes its course. I know that the constant sleeping, the sleeping on the floor as compared to sleeping cuddled up in your shoulder is not the typical rush we have seen each day for the past 9 yrs. Rush is here physically but it seems like with each day a little bit of his spirit and excitement dwindles. I am glad his pain is under control and he still just wants to be with his Dad, even if its on the floor, but I just don't know if this is right for him to continue down this path with all the medication and sleepiness. At the same token, hes still very much here and aware of his surroundings and wants nothing more than to be loved and to love. At this point I do not have it in me yet to put him down. So day by day we will go, knowing in my mind that each hour could be his last. Its just hard to carry on work and life duties as usual, knowing that each time I leave for a minute, he may pass all alone. I woke up every hour last night, with nightmares that Rush has passed in his sleep with me next to him. As good as a thing that might be as compared to getting a shot in the vets office, Im just scared of life without him.
 
So day by day we will go, knowing in my mind that each hour could be his last. Its just hard to carry on work and life duties as usual, knowing that each time I leave for a minute, he may pass all alone. I woke up every hour last night, with nightmares that Rush has passed in his sleep with me next to him. As good as a thing that might be as compared to getting a shot in the vets office, Im just scared of life without him.
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That is heartbreaking to hear of Rush taking possibly a quick turn for the worst. Again I am sorry and my thoughts are with you and your wife.

All you can really do is take it one day at a time. Enjoy each second. But you already know that.

My boys this spring both had to be put down for different reasons. Drake had cancer, Kenz suffered arthritis and dementia. The boys were my anchors to sanity throughout their lives so the thought of losing them left me terrified. Having to put them down hurt incredibly for both dogs but I think it was Drake that hurt the worst. And caused me the most angst. Drake was still himself til the end, which made me wish he would just pass in his sleep. Kenz was not really here much of the time, though he had his periods of clarity and remembrance.

Unlike you I cannot work from home so the last few days especially was hard because like you, I hated the idea of Drake passing alone. The week he had to be put down, I was bombarded with court appearance requirements. It was very tough to turn that part of my brain off to focus solely on my job. My relief was palpable when I would get home and Drake was still alive.

I found that when I couldn?t be home with Drake, it was easier for me to have a picture or two or three with me or close by to help me remember the good times and not dwell on the dreaded what ifs running through my brain. Then the next few weeks afterwards especially, I spent a lot of time taking breaks to look at pictures of Drake, reread stories I had written down about him that helped me remember the good times. I will not lie, I cried a lot when I looked at those pictures or the stories jogged other memories. His and Kenzs last rabies tags are on my key ring. Their collars hang in prominent places and Drakes collar hangs in the truck during hunting season. Drakes ashes went with Steve and me to MT this year and sat underneath my favorite picture of him. Maybe you will not find comfort in keeping his favorite or most used collar. Maybe you will not find comfort in however many pictures you have of Rush just yet. Certainly what works for me is not necessarily going to be what works best for you but maybe it will help give you some ideas on what may help to focus your brain on to help ease that ginormous pit that will be left in your heart.

This whole process of trying to decide the best way to care for your best friend SUCKS no matter how many times you have had to do it. If you are like me, you will carry the loss of Rush forever. Hopefully, like has happened with me and others, finding that thing or things that bring you comfort will help to ease the pain both now and later.

I hope Rush was just having a bad weekend and you get many more months with him back being happy and energetic.

Dani
 
Rob,

I've been following your post. Sharing like this is one way we help each other through hard times, so feel free to keep "leaning" on us.

Your post did trigger a frank family conversation for us. Our Coco is now almost 10 and we never had the "what if" conversation.
My daughter, wife and I had that conversation after I told them about your post. I think it was good for us to have it now when there are no major health issues with Coco.
So in a way, you have helped us navigate a difficult conversation.

Hang in there, enjoy for days with your pup.
 
Carl,

I am glad that Rush and I were able to help your family in some way. My wife hit it on the head last night that Rush was such an annoying little S****. Hence why we he developed the nick name of Turd lol.... He was the kind of dog that as much as he annoyed you, or maybe you didn't have time to pay attention to him, heck even if you weren't a dog lover, Rush's attitude was basically screw you, Im going to make you love me and well, every single person that met him fell in love.

Unfortunately, last night Rush made a turn for the worse. I had just gotten home from a haircut and was catching up on some work emails. My wife came in and she said, wow, Rush felt amazing this evening. He want outside to potty, jumped around waiting for his food at dinner and hung out with Mommy while she worked out in the basement. Shortly after, Rush came into my office and just kind of sat and looked at me and then started crying. I noticed early in the afternoon around 345pm he was getting antsy so I gave him his pain killer about an hour early, it seemed to be fine. But around 8pm while sitting in my office still, he started whimpering and crying, we gave him another pain killer and the whimpering continued, he couldn't sit still, his rear leg was so swollen that he didn't want to sit. He would move around trying to stop the pain and his bad leg would just drag on the ground from being so swollen. It was still smiling and still very much there, but the pain he was in tore me apart. I knew Sunday night, while holding his paw when we slept that Monday might be the day. We had an amazing weekend with beautiful weather and I know he loved it. We tried to get Rush to calm down and fed him loads of treats and a frozen yogurt snack to try and take his mind of the pain while the pain killer kicked in. Unfortunately, the pain killer never seemed to kick in enough. My wife thought, lets give him a 3rd pain killer, I opted not to. What sense does it make to have him high as a kite just for him to be present in the room, why make him continue to suffer when he has already fought so hard. I made the decision it was time. I laid on the floor while he ate another peanut butter doggie ice cream snack, fed him some treats and away we went to the vet around 9pm. It wasn't fair to load him up on meds to get his second dose of chemo this coming Friday. He had fought hard enough.

I carried him in, with his favorite fleece blanket that he has had since he was a puppy. He was feeling better at this time, but we knew what we had to do. 2 amazing vet technicians came into the nicely decorated room and smothered Rush with kisses and treats while they prepped him on my lap. My wife smacked me for saying this, but I felt it was so fitting. When I was busy showing Rush on the dog show circuit, I was a young guy and Rush was (and still is) one heck of a stud. The girls were always hanging around him and me and well we were always both in trouble lol. The 2 vet techs were beautiful college girls, so as Rush is getting prepped, the girls say they are so sorry to me and I replied "well, Rush always loved the girls, so I am sure he is in his glory right now with 3 beautiful ladies in the room before he goes" we all laughed and I think Rush did to. I spoiled him more with treats and hugs and kisses. The vet came in, and peacefully Rush went over the rainbow bridge. He sure has a lot of family up there, so Im hoping he has found his way and all of his brothers and sisters are watching down on us.

Im a bit worried now though, of course after leaving the vet at 10pm, I had myself a strong cocktail at my friends house talking about Rush and playing with his dogs. Its what I needed at the time. Waking up this morning, without a dog howling to go out, not waking up in the middle of the night getting kicked in the groin or having a dog's butt in my face was nice but certainly missed. Breakfast this morning was somber not having that big smiling face sitting at my feet just hanging out with dad. But, what worries me, even as a only get a little choked up writing this post. I have not really cried much yet, I haven't broken down like I did when I first heard Rush had cancer. I am not sure if it set in yet that he is really gone, or perhaps after grieving the last 2 weeks I have found solace in his peaceful passing. Im trying to stay busy at work today but the clock is going slow. Im not looking forward to getting home from work as quickly as I can to be with my boy and hang out on the couch as I normally do. Im trying to find ways to work late so I don't have to go home. Im excited to finally get back out on the marsh and maybe finally shoot my first pintail with the luck of Rush watching over me. Its going to be hard, but I am so thankful for the years I had with him. Im thankful that although he was totally coherent and awake during the procedure last night that he went with all of his dignity and that was important to me. He wasn't in pain at the vet, he likely ate a whole bag of dog treats. He would've been proud of me. On 1/13/2020 at 21:40 "PR" Gr Ch Bluprints California Gold Rush crossed over the rainbow bridge on my lap and in my arms and he will be watching over me forever until someday I can hopefully see him again.

I think it is safe to say everyone on this forum is some level of a dog person. Rush and I would ask you that, maybe today don't be upset the wind was calm, the birds didn't fly and the temperature was too warm. Maybe today do not let your boss make you angry and you take that anger home with you. Maybe today no matter how your day was, leave work or leave your blind at a reasonable time today, get home, hug your family and hug your dogs and tell them that they make everything all worth it. Our dogs are never angry at us no matter how much they may want to be, they never live a day in the past, they live in the moment. If more of us could be a little more like dogs, the world may be a much happier place.

Thank you all for reading this journey and for all your kind words through this process. I wish the outcome was different, but I know Rush is happy and in a good place. Be well.

I forgotten to mention, although Rush did amazing well in the show ring, he was not a hunting dog. He hated the boat. Though, I always wanted a hunting dog and always wanted to bring Rush with me but never did. Jode Hillman will likely be making an urn for me and Rush will be able to join me on all of my hunts now and forever. Not sure I will ever float him as he always did not like the water, but I think just being in the boat with me would surely make me happy. I just hope Rush wont mind....
 
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Well, gotta say, I'd kinda like to go surrounded by pretty college girls feeding me snacks. (my wife might not appreciate it or maybe she would??)

Sorry you lost him so soon. Hang in there.

I'll take your advice to heart and give Coco a big hug and extra treat tonight after work.

Funny thing, like Rush, Coco is not a hunting dog, as I intended.
She will play fetch with a dead duck in the backyard all day long, she likes boat rides and sleeps right through me shooting ducks.
But she has zero interested in cold water and retrieving, not much in the way of hunting instinct.
She even lets the squirrels, chickens and blue jays eat out of her bowl.
She is a great family dog, my daughters best buddy and we love her.
 

I think it is safe to say everyone on this forum is some level of a dog person. Rush and I would ask you that, maybe today don't be upset the wind was calm, the birds didn't fly and the temperature was too warm. Maybe today do not let your boss make you angry and you take that anger home with you. Maybe today no matter how your day was, leave work or leave your blind at a reasonable time today, get home, hug your family and hug your dogs and tell them that they make everything all worth it. Our dogs are never angry at us no matter how much they may want to be, they never live a day in the past, they live in the moment. If more of us could be a little more like dogs, the world may be a much happier place.

Wow Rob, what a amazing sentiment. I am so sorry for your loss.
 
Rob, Very sorry for the loss of your best friend. I hope you are doing well, these are the most awful times for me, but some how get through them. The world is never the same, and not a better place without our best buddies, or babies, but again we work our way through these rough times.
 
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