romansperson

Well, the OSU site says: "Osteosarcomas (OSAs) are the most common primary bone neoplasm in dogs and the most common tumor in Greyhounds in the United Kingdom, where it accounted for 50% of all tumors, and for 22% of the deaths in the breed (www.gurk.demon.co.uk /ghsurvey). Cancer in general (44%), and OSA in particular (22%) were the leading cause of death in the breed." I'd heard a long time ago that the incidence of osteo in racing greyhounds in the U.S. may be as high as 1 in 5, but I cannot remember where I saw that. It's true for our household anyway - of a total of 5 hounds, we've had two with osteo so far.

I was thinking 'rage' syndrome too - no one knows exactly what causes it - most likely there are multiple causes and there is more than one method of treatment, which is combined with behavioral therapy. It would be a good idea to see if you can consult with a vet who is also a behavorial specialist, like Dr. Dodman at Tufts. I know they have a consulting service there, but you may be able to find someone good to see in person if you don't live in that part of the country. I'm so sorry this happened - and I admire you for wanting to work it out with Gabe. Just stay safe! No more dogs on the bed - ever.

Aww, that sounds wonderful (the running part). Hopefully he'll be ready for the chemo next week. Here's an old pic of our JC running - he was 12 at the time. They don't let those amputations stop them, for sure.

We've had to use steroids with our pups over the years - both injectible and oral - for neck and back problems. Never had an adverse reaction to injectibles. Side effects with oral steroids are dependent on which one is used (usually prednisone, but we've also used dexamethasone) and the size of the dose. Larger doses mean a greater chance of side effects and they can be more severe too. Greyhounds often do suffer more greatly from the adverse effects, so our vets have always used less (usually half the dose) of oral steroids than they would use on a different breed of the same size. We always use a stomach protectant too. We have fortunately not had to deal with bleeding, but we believe Roman suffered from steroid psychosis from his course of oral prednisone. It was really quite disturbing at the time.

Try not to worry. When JC had his carboplatin treatments, he was supposed to get them every 3 weeks (4 treatments total). That never happened - at 3 weeks his white count was always too low, so it happened every 4 weeks. He survived osteo - died more than 3 years later of something else. The one thing you need to be aware of is that a dog with a low white cell count is at risk for infection, so just keep an eye on him. Dogs that get septicemia can actually get temperatures that are BELOW normal - so if your pup acts lethargic and has a temp either under or over the normal range for dogs, call your vet. Our vet actually gave us some oral antibiotics to have on hand just in case - I was instructed to give the antibs immediately if I suspected something was wrong and then call the vet! We just kept JC away from other dogs to limit his exposure to germs and he was fine. One nice thing about our vet was that they do house calls, and we had them come to the house to do the blood tests and only brought him in if the count was OK to go ahead with the actual treatment. JC was never a good traveler, so it saved on stress and carsickness for him and limited his exposure to random germs.

Actually, it works in the opposite way. The price is no deterrent for basic research on how useful the drug is for treatment of tumors. If the data from basic research shows that it is a useful drug, then it will start to be routinely used in a clinical setting. The more it is used, the more drug that is manufactured, and then the price starts to come down (also with the help of generics). What I was referring to was the initial cost of using it clinically. Not very many people are going to be able to afford such a treatment at the outset, particularly if it is in combination with any other drugs that are expensive. Carboplatin, as an example, will never be much (if any) cheaper, as it is a platinum compound. That means it will likely be a long time before a drug that like Gleevec is used routinely in pets (if it ever is). Drugs produced by recombinant DNA technology (like Procrit and Neupogen). aren't going to get cheaper any time soon either - and those could potentially be useful in dogs for more reasons than just chemotherapy.

I expect we won't know any more about this until the price comes down. Just carboplatin alone is $500 a pop, and that doesn't include the vet's fees for administering it.

Run free, Kavana. If love could keep them alive, they'd live forever. My husband found this photo on the cover of the Review:

It's on its way!

Is that the article found under the Grassmere Animal Hospital website that is found under the topic "Corn"? If not, where do I find it? The pictures are here: http://www.grassmere-animal-hospital.com/corn_hulling.htm I have a copy of the veterinary journal article (which the vets seem to be more accepting of - if it's in a journal is more official I guess ). If you PM me your email address and I'll be happy to email you a copy!

Was the drug ketamine, by any chance? That's frequently given as a preanesthetic and there can be some involuntary jerking movements with it sometimes (it is used in people also). Acepromazine can have agitation as a side effect, but I don't *think* that's used as a preanesthetic. When Idol was put to sleep he was sedated first as well and had some involuntary 'chewing' movements. I don't think he knew it was happening.

You might find a vet who is willing to try. Do you have the corn article that Dr. Feeman and Dr. Macherey wrote? NONE of the vets are our clinic had done it before, and three of them so far have been willing to have a go (though one only wanted to try when Pumpkin was asleep for her dental ). The pictures in the article help a lot, I think.

Last week, here on GreyTalk, I asked for opinions on whether I should take Bodie along and it was on the advice of the members that I decided to go! I'm not wild about taking him, but I comfort myself with the thought he can always return to the B&B and rest (he's good with staying alone), Cornell Vet. School Hospital is close by for any emergencies, and, most important, he will be under my watchful care. I didn't see that thread, and what I wrote above is what *I'd* do in a similar situation. I don't know you, your dog or your situation so please don't focus solely on that one comment. We all love our dogs here and try to do our best by them using our own best judgement. The rest of my post actually answers the second question you asked. FWIW, in your first question, you say he doesn't have corns, but it sounds to me like he does if there are two hard areas he doesn't want touched. Without seeing it though it's hard to say whether they are or not, or what could be done to fix the problem. I hope your vet has some suggestions for you. We used a number of different things to try and soften Pumpkin's corns and nothing worked. Hulling is the only thing that has so far.

I think I'd just wait until my pup was fully healed before taking him anywhere where he'll have to walk a lot. I wouldn't want to risk delaying healing or causing him any unnecessary discomfort. That said, Pumpkin has corns on her front feet and I've used toddler socks on her when she had to wear something on her foot for more than 20 minutes or so (we have Therapaws but they start to irritate her knuckles after a little while). I get the kind that have thick padding on the bottom. There are also kinds that have not only the thick padding but a non-skid coating on the bottom as well. Those can be affixed with Elastikon farther up the ankle. You do need to be sure the socks are snug, though. Cotton socks stretch, and if they get too loose the dog can step on the end of the sock with his or her front foot and either stumble or pull the sock off - or both. I wouldn't put Therapaws over them if I used socks.

How about Dr. Feeman's clinic? He posts here on GT when he has time: Animal Medical Centre of Medina: http://www.animalmedicalcentreofmedina.com/amc.htm

His spleen was sent out for biopsy, right? Do you know when the results will be back? I wonder if an underlying tick disease might be the cause of the spleen problem and the fluid accumulation.

Hm. Sounds to me like either the former owner was, ah, exaggerating, or the estimate included taking care of other problems like the fleas and such. Roman had a heart murmur due to mitral valve incompetence and the only thing different about his dental was the type of medication used for induction. Very little, if any, price difference. With this girl it is entirely possible that the bad teeth and the murmur are related to each other. Heart murmurs can even go away once the teeth are treated and properly cared for.

I'd probably take him to his regular vet and get him tested to see why he bleeds so much. Nails do bleed a lot, but it shouldn't take hours for them to stop. Our Idol had SLO but with the help of a little Kwik-Stop Gel, we could get them to stop pretty quickly, like in a minute or two. If a nail was jagged when it fell off, he'd go to the vet and she'd give him a local anesthetic and then cut the rest of the nail off right where it came out of the toe. The bleeding on those would stop in less than half an hour. To figure out why Norm's nails are coming off, he'll probably need to see a dermatologist.

If Rusty is OK with letting you touch his legs, try very gently massaging them, starting at the ankles and moving upward with your strokes. After our JC had his amputation surgery, he had a LOT of swelling - at one point the only place that wasn't swollen was the top of his head (yes, it really was that bad - he looked more like a turkey than a greyhound). Fortunately the swelling in the body went down fairly quickly, but the legs were stubborn and of course you can't tell a dog he's got to keep his feet elevated, so we massaged his legs and coaxed the fluid upward - it helped quite a bit and within 48 hours it was all gone.

How about trying a different NSAID instead? If the Metacam bothers his stomach, there are a bunch of others out there to try that might not.

I'd really love to see a study that compares groups of greyhounds who had racing careers against groups of greyhounds from the same genetic background that didn't - there is a suspicion that osteosarcoma risk goes up due to repeated small injury to the long bones, which is obviously something that is a lot more likely to happen to a greyhound who goes through training and then races than one that doesn't. I wonder if there is any way to make that happen? I know there are 'oops' litters of greyhound puppies from time to time who aren't trained to race. It would be interesting to see if those puppies are less likely to get osteo over their lifetimes. Though of course if it turned out that training and/or racing does increase risk, I don't know what we'd do with that information unless it could lead to some way of changing racing training or the design of racetracks so that the risk goes down. That doesn't seem likely though.

Oh, man. That sucks (literally in this case). One of the nicest things about moving to central NC was no more tiger mosquitoes! We'd clap when the mosquito truck would come around in VA, .

Can you point to any proof of any of this? Because I know the belief that 'chemicals' are killing us all is really popular, but I've never seen any actual statistics to back that up, other than the ones that point to air pollution, which is becoming a big problem in developing countries. Are cancer rates *really* going up for children and adults under 40 (not 50, as cancer incidence always rises after 40), or is it a function of the fact that something else that used to kill high rates of young people isn't killing them now, like smallpox or polio or tuberculosis? From WHO's 2003 worldwide cancer study: "The predicted sharp increase in new cases – from 10 million new cases globally in 2000, to 15 million in 2020 - will mainly be due to steadily ageing populations in both developed and developing countries and also to current trends in smoking prevalence and the growing adoption of unhealthy lifestyles." and, in the "Key Statements" section: "Researchers will demonstrate that successful behavioral changes in tobacco, alcohol and diet will prevent far more cancers than the elimination of toxins such as industrial pollution, car exhaust and dioxins" So - not much in there about 'chemicals' as a major caustive factor. Plenty in there about poor choices though. It's really too bad that in most cases it takes years of poor choices for cancer to show up. I wonder how many people would start smoking if previous smokers got lung cancer after just a few weeks or months of smoking? Anyway, when it comes to cancer in our greys, I'd really love to see a study that compares groups of greyhounds who had racing careers against groups of greyhounds from the same genetic background that didn't - there is a suspicion that osteosarcoma risk goes up due to repeated small injury to the long bones, which is obviously something that is a lot more likely to happen to a greyhound who goes through training and then races than one that doesn't. I wonder if there is any way to make that happen? I know there are 'oops' litters of greyhound puppies from time to time who aren't trained to race. It would be interesting to see if those puppies are less likely to get osteo over their lifetimes. Though of course I don't know what we'd do with that information unless it could lead to some way of changing racing training or the design of racetracks so that the risk goes down. That doesn't seem likely though.

Ugh, tiger mosquitoes are AWFUL! We had them where I used to live in VA and those things will come after you in broad daylight. They don't range far from where they are born, so look all over your property and dump out anything that has standing water in it, like the article above says - even a little bitty flower pot with some standing water in it is enough from them to breed in. Ask your neighbors to do this too - if you can get rid of their breeding places you'll have *much* less problems with them.

Have you considered the fact that in the U.S. in 1900 the average lifespan was only 47 years and in 2000 it was averaged at 77 years? And that cancer incidence increases with age? I'd say that has an awful lot more to do with cancer rates in human populations than anything else. Food sources have actually become much safer since 1900. Cancer is a disease that often takes a long time to surface (lung cancer is a good example - smokers usually have to smoke for years before they are diagnosed) - if you die of something else first, then it never has an opportunity to develop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00056796.htm