romansperson

From the American Veterinary Medical Association site: "Cancer is common in pet animals, and the rate increases with age. Dogs get cancer at roughly the same rate as humans, while cats get fewer cancers. Cancer accounts for almost half of the deaths of pets over 10 years of age." Unfortunately cancer is just really common. I'm sure every one of us knows a person who has or had cancer, and the older you get the worse it gets.

We had 4 treatments of carboplatin for JC. The oncologist who set up the protocol said we could do either that or the adriamycin/carboplatin combo. We opted for the single agent since it would have less potential side effects and it worked out fine. JC never got sick from the treatment and he lived almost another 3 years, so for him the outcome was excellent.

There is a veterinary rehab place here that treats dogs after surgeries such as what you are describing. It's called Vethab: http://www.vethab.com/Home/index.php. The specialist you are seeing might be able to recommend such a place to you - if you don't want to pay them to do the physical therapy you can make a couple of appts. where they show you how to do it at home. It helps with healing and regaining normal motion afterwards. They would be able to help with questions about length of recuperation, etc., though of course a lot depends on what exactly happens during the surgery.

Idol started off getting 50mg of Tramadol twice a day with 300mg of Zubrin once a day and gabapentin 100mg 3-4 times a day. He was about 73 lbs. But you know what helped the most with his pain? Dexamethasone 0.5mg, either twice or three times a day. We didn't know for awhile that Idol's problem was osteo - it didn't show up on the initial x-rays. The specialist we took him to thought he might have a disk problem in his neck and changed us to the steroid (the Tramadol and gabapentin can be given at the same time too). It helped the most. My BIL also had a bullmastiff with bone cancer in her upper left leg and she was maintained on prednisone for quite awhile before the cancer spread.

Aww, poor guy. Give him a smooch for me. Pumpkin had a growth removed from the inside of her leg and had a real long incision like that - vet was worried it was a mast cell tumor so he took a lot of tissue (fortunately it was benign!). In a couple weeks it was all healed up and now you can't even tell where it was! Dogs are amazing healers.

JC was on Interceptor as well, but that is not enough to eliminate a hookworm infestation - the amount of medication in heartworm preventative is really quite small. JC was a FL dog; born, raised and raced there, where hookworm can be a real problem. Brood mamas who are infected can pass the worm on to their pups. Hookworms can encyst themselves in tissues, where it can be impossible to kill them until they become active again. JC had had negative stool tests prior to his crisis, too, so don't count on a stool test to be definitive - hookworms shed eggs in cycles, so it's perfectly possible to test at the wrong time when eggs aren't being shed. Dogs will hookworm also need to be wormed repeatedly - usually 10 days after the first time, then a month later, 3 months after that, etc. Hookworms I hope Jordan is better very soon!

Is Jordan a recent addition to your family? I ask because our JC was diagnosed with HGE about a year after we got him by an ER vet. That diagnosis was WRONG. I called our adoption rep after taking him to the ER, and she said they should check for hookworms. Turns out that's what it was. He was still a sick pup, but once we knew what was wrong and it got treated he got much better pretty quickly.

All these wonderful dogs ... gone now ... Idol Roman and I have a wonderful photo at home that you took, Sage, of Rob Roy and Harley together, lying back to back ... he (and you) took such good care of Rob when he needed it so much. It's all these dogs that made us love this breed. Even though it hurts so much to lose one, it's so hard to imagine life without one (or more!).

I just talked to the photographer we had come to the house and take photos of Idol and Pumpkin a couple years ago. I wanted to find out if I could get another print of a photo of Idol running that she'd taken. She told me that she'd wanted to contact me, but had lost our contact information. She submits photos for publication in various calendars and she had wanted to submit a photo she'd taken of Idol and Pumpkin. There's a field just outside our neighborhood that the owner uses to grow hay on - usually ryegrass and wild mustard. It's very pretty in the spring, with the dark green grass and the yellow mustard blossoms - kind of like this. The photo she is going to submit was taken there. It's for a 2009 pet calendar of some sort. Cross your fingers it gets chosen! She said she'd hear whether it was in October and she'll send us a calendar too. That would make an awfully nice tribute to him.

Idol was his kennel name, which we kept. I've always wished I could talk to the person who gave it to him and ask them why they chose it - was it because he was movie-idol handsome? Reminded them of Billy Idol? I wish I knew! Thanks so much everyone for your kind thoughts. The house has been so quiet! No pup around to bark at the neighbors or at the thunderstorm last night ... Pumpkin is a very quiet girl and it almost seems like we don't have a dog around at all. I think she might be a bit depressed too.

Idol was really starting to look like his great-uncle Roman as he got older, and to act a little bit more like him too. We were really looking forward to watching him as he became a senior and mellowed with age. Not to be, though ... he died younger than Roman was went we got him.

We had to let our hound Idol go yesterday. He had a large tumor in the bone of his shoulder and since we'd been trying to find out since early December why he was having pain in that area, it wasn't at all good that it took this long to find out. The x-rays we had taken as late as February didn't show it. It finally took an MRI last week to do so. The specialist we took Idol to in the hope of diagnosing the problem said that he must have been a very stoic hound and the tumor must have grown fast in the last month. He was a beautiful hound and will be very much missed. This is the way I want to remember him - as he was here: Our vet was very kind and came out to the house to help him to the Bridge. That meant a lot to us, as he'd been to the vet for so many painful visits since this whole thing started. It was a beautiful warm day and all the flowering trees are blooming here. The wrens are shopping for real estate and we also saw our first tiger swallowtail butterfly of the season while we waited in the back yard for the vet to come. Idol also got a tenderloin steak and some homemade bread with Easy Cheese on it - things he really wanted that he was not allowed before because of his inflammatory bowel disease. He enjoyed that very much. I'm so sorry, buddy. I wish there had been some way to know earlier. The cancer had a lot of opportunity to spread, and I am amazed that you bore the pain as well as you did. I'm glad that we were able to help you with that pain, at least somewhat. There are a lot of people besides us who cared about you and tried to help, too. We love you, we miss you and we hope that you will wait for us. If love could have kept you alive, you would have lived forever.

The 'dog dose' of Pepcid (famotidine) is 0.5-1 mg per kilo for use with steroids, either once or twice a day as per the Merck Manual. At 87 lbs. then Dusty's at 39.5 kilos, so a 20 mg. extra strength would be the right size. When we used Pepcid for Idol's IBD, I'd give one regular 10 mg. tablet twice a day with each meal (Idol's about 31 kilos). If the pred starts off with twice a day, you might want start with twice a day too. Pred should always be given with food, as well. Also, if there is a lot of water drinking/peeing, that's a dose dependent thing. When the dose comes down, the drinking/peeing will become less too. If it's really problematic, you can call the vet. They may clear you to taper down the dose sooner.

One of the members, Damon Albarn, is a greyhound racing fan.

He has (or had; she'd be really old now if she's still around) a female pup named Schuyler.

Here's two places I use. Good products, prompt service and really nice people: Rays of Joy: http://www.raysofjoy.com/ Reflections Pet Urns: http://www.peturns.com