Recently I heard the comment that medicine (in my case, veterinary medicine) is primitive.

This is a very interesting comment, especially if we are talking about canine cancer.

When you are coping with a canine cancer diagnosis, the question of curing cancer comes up frequently.  Now, shifting back to this idea about medicine being primitive, let’s look at some  assumptions so we can clear up some concepts about cancer in the dog.

First, the idea of cancer care being primitive would be based on expectations.  Second, many of us have heard that we do not have a cure for cancer.  “The Cure For Cancer” is a goal of modern science.

But wait.  I recently read in USA today that at an event in Estes, Colorado, it was proclaimed that we cure half of the dogs with cancer.

If we are able to cure half the dogs with cancer, why is it that we are still searching for the cure for cancer?

Well, we are of course talking about the other half.

So what makes a cancer curable?  Let’s look at a concept that needs more attention: systemic disease.

If a cancer is located in a single location in the body, and that location can be removed surgically, and there are no cancer cells (or late stage pre-cancerous cells) left in the body, then we have a situation where the cancer can be cured.

The situation is different if there are cancer cells dispersed in the body, either in the area around the surgery site (having moved from the central location into the surrounding neighborhood), or in a distant location (spread in the circulation).

In these cases, the phrase used in The Dog Cancer Survival Guide is Hard to Cure.  These are the ones where the cancer cells have spread into the body, and this is what most clinicians might call systemic disease.

Those cancers where the cells are isolated to a single location can be removed with surgery.  This is perhaps the only way, at this point in time, that cancers can be cured.

Perhaps this is why my client made the statement that medicine is primitive. The sole way that we cure cancers in veterinary medicine is by cutting them out, when it is possible.

It is important to realize what the goals of treatment are for those cancers that are more systemic (Hard to Cure).  These would include lymphosarcoma, osteosarcoma, many mammary cancers, hemangiosarcoma, osteosarcoma, many mast cell tumors, and others.

Other Hard to Cure cancers would be the ones that might be removable with surgery, but are in a location that makes them difficult to remove.  These tend to send out cells into the surrounding neighborhood around the tumor itself. Common examples are fibrosarcoma, squamous cell carcinomas, transitional cell carcinoma (often in the bladder), and spindle cell tumors of various kinds.

So, the bottom line is finding out what type of cancer we are dealing with is critical.  This is part of your data collection stage of the plan in The Dog Cancer Survival Guide.  Once this is established, clear goals and expectations can be defined by you and your vet or oncologist.

Best,

Dr D

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine was just published that showed that human cancer patients lived both longer and better with hospice care.

Patients with a type of lung cancer lived almost 2 months longer with hospice care than those who did not.  Similar trends have been seen with other terminal diseases and cancer types (breast, prostate, colon, pancreas and others) where the longevity was increased by 20-69 days with hospice care.

So how does this relate to our four legged loved ones?

Well, we need to look at the cause for the life extension in hospice centers.  Is the reason for gain in longevity due to better care at these facilities, more attention to detail and intervention?  It is possible.

But the focus of hospice is palliation and pain reduction…life quality increases. The main goal of this type of care is the physical, emotional and psychological well being of the patient.

I believe that this study may actually point to the link between attention to these aspects of care and longevity, as opposed to  life quality.  In other words, by addressing comfort care in a real way, we can perhaps gain time for our dogs.

How could this be?

In The Dog Cancer Survival Guide, several different ways this can happen are explained.  A clear connection is that chronic pain itself does a lot of unhealthy things to a body, whether human or dog.  One of the biggest is it creates stress, which suppresses cancer-fighting white blood cells like NK cells and cytotoxic T cells.

The end of life stage in the path of dog cancer can be brutal.  However, there are some who actually are able, by hook or by crook, to create something beautiful out of it.  Usually this is done by paying attention to closure, by scheduling time for appropriate and healthy connection with your loved dog.

Pain management, touch therapies, fluids, appetite stimulants and medications for nausea, caloric intake, overcoming social isolation, sunlight, sleep, bedsore prevention, and proper home nursing care to help with body functions are some of the pillars of end of life stage care.

Best,

Dr D

A very common question that readers post on this blog goes something like this:

“I found a lump.  It is (description) and is on my dog’s (body part).  Is it anything to worry about?”

It helps to widen back and look at lumps in dogs generally to help clarify this topic.  What’s the number one cause of dog death, if we exclude euthanasia?  Dog cancer.  How does dog cancer most commonly look to the naked eye?  It looks like a lump.

When we find a lump on a dog, this should be a red flag.  A certain reaction should be happening in the mind of the dog lover. First, both veterinarians and dog guardians should know the number one most dangerous health problem that exists for dogs, the most likely problem that could take a dog away..cancer.

We have been negligent in spreading this information to dog guardians.  And by “we”, I include the group I am a member of: veterinarians.  Vets should have this information and be spreading it in the same way we talk about parvo and heartworm disease.

For some reason we don’t.  Perhaps it is because bringing up cancer in a discussion feels a little out of bounds since we don’t want to upset our clients.  Or it could be that there has not been a marketing push like there is for parvo vaccination or for heartworm disease.  Since we have access to preventatives in these cases, pharmaceutical companies make a point to help spread the word about these diseases.

This is not wrong, of course.  Why not protect a dog from a problem when it is prudent to do so? (The vaccination debate is discussed elsewhere…)

So why would a guardian wonder what to do if a lump popped up?  Clearly, if a woman found a lump in her breast, she would most likely be at the doctor’s promptly.  Why?  Because there has been enough press on breast cancer that finding the lump would raise a red flag, sparking the thought that breast cancer happens.

But in veterinary medicine, there is a mental disconnect between lumps in dogs and cancer, in spite of the statistics.

The answer to the question of what to do if a lump is found on a loved dog is this: go to your vet and get it checked!  Get it aspirated, get it biopsied, get the data you need!

Can a vet diagnose a lump by looking at it?  Very occasionally, but usually not.  Can a vet diagnose a lump by squeezing it? Very occasionally, but usually not.

One of my pet peeves (sorry, bad pun) is the diagnosis of a benign fatty tumor based on looking and touching alone.  Soft, squishy bumps under the skin could indeed be harmless lipomas.  But, they could also be dangerous growths like mast cell tumors, hemangiopericytomas, subcutaneous blood filled hemangiosarcomas, or liposarcomas.  These all feel soft and squishy.

This brings a case to mind.  Three weeks ago, a client brought her dog in to have a lump checked out.  This had been previously diagnosed as a harmless lipoma at another veterinary hospital.  It felt soft and squishy.

A fine needle aspirate was done on the growth at my hospital.  I inserted a syringe with a needle in the growth, and pulled back on the plunger.  Did fat enter the needle hub, which is what a fatty tumor would yield?  No.  The syringe filled with blood.

This was no lipoma.  Blood filled swellings have their list of possibilities too, but one of them is a hemangiosarcoma under the skin, a malignant cancer.  And over the 6 months that this growth had slowly increased in size with nothing done, the mass had swelled to about 4 inches across.

Now we had a big problem to deal with that could have been caught a long time ago.

The bottom line is this:  remember the dog cancer statistics.  According to the National Canine Cancer Foundation, 1 in 3 dogs will contract cancer in their lifetime, and this number increases to 1 in 2 if the dog is more than 10 years of age.

Get dog lumps checked!

For more information on dog lumps, how they are diagnosed, and their complete treatment options, check out The Dog Cancer Survival Guide.

Best,

Dr D

In some ways physicians have it easy.  An MD can ask a human patient, “Are you in pain?”

It’s a bit tougher for us animal lovers. Interestingly, we are in the same boat as pediatricians in this way.  We have to go by signs, feelings, intuition in some cases.  And sometimes the truth is that it really can be tough to tell.

The bottom line is that we do know that, obviously, dogs do feel pain.  And that cancer is capable of causing pain in some cases, and definitely later in the disease.

In humans, pain is the most common first complaint of cancer patients, seen in 20-50% of cancer patients when they are first diagnosed.  For late human cancers, 75-90% of patients report pain, often severe.  Therefore, many times a veterinarian or oncologist will prescribe pain drugs.

In light of the fact that so many readers of this blog are giving their four legged family members pain medication, I thought it might be useful to go over the most common of these drugs, at least in terms of what they are used for.

Sometimes a dog lover will get a medication with the comment, “This is for pain.” Okay, makes sense.  But as usual, there is more to the story.

There are different kinds of pain, and the medications for pain work in different ways.  Certain pain medications are better for certain kinds of pain.

One of the central themes of The Dog Cancer Survival Guide is to help you be a better Guardian for your dog. A guardian is a vigilant protector. In order for you to be a vigilant protector, you must be armed with the data and concepts you need to fulfill the job requirements.

Okay, here’s some data and concepts for you.

First, the NSAIDS (Non Steriodal Anti Inflammatory Drugs).  Examples are Metacam, Deramaxx, Previcox, Rimadyl, aspirin, and Tylenol (not often prescribed in primary care).

These drugs lessen inflammation, which is often seen as redness, swelling and discomfort.  They also have a second effect called analgesia, which is the medical word for pain reduction.

These drugs are used for pain that is mild to moderate in humans, and we should likely apply this information to dogs.  For obvious signs of pain in dogs (more severe), these drugs by themselves are often not enough.

The NSAIDS are useful for controlling what is called adaptive pain, which means the body’s response to tissue injury, in this case caused by cancer.  Adaptive pain can also be caused by trauma, surgery, and so on.

(By the way, I receive a lot of questions about the use of Apocaps with NSAIDs.  The substances in Apocaps are found in plants, but have been shown to have actions that are similar to the NSAID drugs, although they are gentler and take a week or two to build up in the system.  For this reason, in my patients, I will drop the dose of either the NSAID or the Apocaps to 1/4-1/2 the labeled dose when they are used together.  I also do not use them together if the patient has a history of a sensitive stomach.)

If the adaptive pain is more severe, vets will often combine drugs. This is called multimodal analgesia, which is a strategy to control pain using drug combinations.  This allows for more pain control while minimizing side effects that happen if we keep increasing single drug doses.

Typically, a narcotic of some kind is used with an NSAID.  Some examples would be sustained release morphine or Tramadol (pills) or Fentanyl (usually a patch delivering the drug through the skin).  Strangely, morphine has some evidence for increasing cancer cell growth.

However, there is a lot of variability in how different patients respond to these drugs, and in end-stage cancer, if the morphine is helping a lot with life quality, it may be the best choice from a humane standpoint.

It is interesting that Tramadol may have some anti-depressant effects, which is quite nice for a cancer patient, dogs included.

There are actually true anti-depressants which may help with cancer pain.  One is amitriptyline (Elavil).  This medication is not used for adaptive pain.  There is another type of  pain that has nothing to do with tissue injury per se.  It involves the reaction of the nervous system (brain, spinal cord and nerves) to the tissue injury.

This type of pain is called nueropathic pain, and is an independant part of the overall pain experienced.  It is actually the body’s response to adaptive pain, and it adds to the overall experience of pain in a real way. In some cases it is called “wind-up”. Sometimes neuropathic pain can be caused by anxiety.

In neuropathic pain, the reaction in the nervous system to the pain actually makes the pain feeling worse.  We see this more common in pain that is experienced for a long time on the order of weeks, months or years (chronic pain).

Medications like Elavil can help with this type of pain.  Other medications that help with the neuropathic part of chronic pain include Gabapentin and Amantadine.

Usually we will combine the drugs used to treat neuropathic pain with medications for adaptive pain.

Other ways to help with cancer pain include acupuncture, palliative radiation, and pamindronate. Discuss these with your conventional veterinarian, oncologist, or holistic vet to see if they are appropriate for your dog’s cancer.

For those of you having the misfortune of having Torbugesic as the med your vet first prescribes for your dog’s pain, please insist on getting something longer lasting and more potent. This drug last only about 1-2 hours in dogs and, at least in my hands, is almost useless for significant pain control.

Pain control is an important part of the full spectrum cancer plan discussed in The Dog Cancer Survival Guide.

Best,

Dr D

The one of the first steps in the plan for helping you with dog cancer in The Guide is data collection.  Without data about your dog’s cancer, survival times, life quality during treatment, side effects, costs, nursing care you will be expected to do, your dog’s normal life expectancy and so on, you will be lost.

Let’s look at a central statistic used in discussing dog cancer treatment plans: survival time. Whether you decide on chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, diet, supplements, touch therapies, stress reduction in your dog or any of the different aspects of care, you will want to keep survival time in mind.

The two benefits of treating a dog with cancer are added longevity (increases in life time), and added net life quality (any negatives from treatment are outweighed by the overall increase in good life quality from the treatment).

Survival time is very important.  For many, it is even more important than life quality.  For many, it is less important.  Regardless, it is a big item in any consideration.

So we look at what may be called life expectancy gain.  This is just the difference in life span gained with treatment, compared to that without treatment.

You would ask your vet or oncologist this central question:

“In your opinion (and I will not hold you to this as I understand every dog is different), what is an educated guess on how long my dog has if we don’t use these treatments compared to how long my dog has if we do use these treatments?  What is the payoff in terms of life extension?”

Notice we are using the phrase, “educated guess.” Why is this? The reason is because even if we have references, published data, the number used in discussing survival times is very approximate.  One of the reasons is because of cancer statistics.

The statistic used in oncology is called median survival time.

A median is sort of like an average, but it is not an average per se.  When we talk about averages we are talking about some kind of a central tendency…a usable number, something we can latch on to in order to think about the best way to approach our dog’s cancer.

And we need to.  But, there is more to this story.  And you may like the ending.

When we use this number, all we are saying is that if cancer has a median survival time it means that in studies, the lifespan of half the patients was less than the median survival time, and the other half lived longer.

Hm.  When you think about it, there is less useful information here than we would like.

Here’s a secret that few know about concerning median survival time.  Median survival times can have what are called skews.  We can have left skews and right skews.

Let me clarify these skews.  Say we have a median survival time of 11 months for a given cancer.   What if we had 20 dogs in the study.  Half of the dogs would have lifespans less than 11 months, and the other half would live longer than 11 months. So ten live less than 11 months, and ten live more than 11 months.

Okay, here’s the interesting part.  If we have a left skewed distribution, the dogs who lived less than 11 months would have lifespans all over the board- maybe some at 2 months after diagnosis, a few at 3, more at 5, one at 7, a couple at 9.  That’s left-skewed: the dogs who lived less than the median survival time passed at a wide range of times.

Now, what about right skewed?  In a right skewed median survival time, the half dogs who lived more than 11 months in our example would have a wide range of survival times.  Maybe some at 12 months after diagnosis, a couple at 13, a few at 15, and one at 25, and one at 48 months.

25 months? 48 months?  Pretty far from 11 months. Of course, I am making these numbers up, but nonetheless, this stuff can happen.

So the good news here, and this is discussed in the upcoming second Guide edition I am writing with the help of oncologist Dr. Sue Ettinger, is that an cancer diagnosis is not an immediate death sentence.

True, we have to use statistics and data to inform our treatment plans.  But if a cancer has a median survival time that seems short, it does not mean that your dog will pass away at that exact time.  As a matter of fact, the odds are incredibly low that this will happen.

This is especially true if you are taking many more steps to help your dog than what were taken in the study used to create the median survival time for your dog’s cancer.

So, take median survival times with a grain of salt.  They are tools and nothing more. The only thing that can be said with any certainty is that if you predict your dog’s survival using median survival time, it will almost certainly be wrong.  Use them as the very rough, imprecise numbers they are.

By the way, Dr. Stephen Gould, one of the great thinkers of this century, was diagnosed with mesothelioma, likely caused by asbestos exposure.  The median survival time for this cancer  was 8 months.  He lived 20 years, ample time to write a great essay on median survival times.

Best,

Dr D

Yesterday, a 13 year old Rottweiler came in to the hospital.

She had been limping, and there was a swelling in her front leg, down on the forearm.  It was firm and slightly warm to the touch.  The area was about 4 inches long.

We took X-rays of the sore leg.  The films showed a large area of bone in what is called a sunburst pattern.  This means that the bone expands and looks mottled and proliferative. There is an example of a sunburst patten on this link.

A sunburst pattern is usually caused by canine osteosarcoma, the most common cancer of the bones in dogs.

To absolutely confirm that this is the case, a specimen needs to be sent to a pathologist. In this case, I was worried that a surgical biopsy would weaken the leg to the point where it might fracture.

Bone tumors weaken bone.  One of the very horrible possible outcomes of osteosarcoma in the very late stages is what is called a pathological fracture.  This is a type of bone break which is not caused by trauma, like falls or auto accidents.

Pathological fractures are simply caused by normal movements on bone that is so weakened by invading tumor cells that it breaks during these normal activities.

This is one of the reasons removal of the affected leg in many cases of canine osteosarcoma is a life quality choice.  We remove the limb and the pain goes away.  There will be no possibility of a pathological fracture either.

So, back to yesterday.  We talked about it for a long time.  What to do?  This was a 13 year old large breed dog, with a normal life expectancy of about 12 years or so.  So we were beating the odds already.

I asked her human what kind of person he was…A, B, or C ?  These are groups of people described in The Dog Cancer Survival Guide in the treatment plan analysis section.  You must know what kind of person you are to operate successfully in caring for a dog with cancer.

A’s want life extension and are willing to tolerate side effects from the treatments.  B’s want some life extension and are willing to tolerate some milder side effects. C’s are only concerned with life quality and will accept very little life extension.  They want as few side effects as possible and only want comfort care.

And of course, people are allowed to change over time.

So he told me he was a C.  We discussed how there is no “right way” to do this. A veterinary textbook may not apply under these circumstances.

I went over amputation, chemotherapy, radiation and so on. We also discussed diet, supplements, and the many other aspects of cancer treatment discussed in The Guide.

The plan we opted for was The Dog Cancer Diet, Apocaps, Tramadol and Deramaxx to start with .  We had a budget to work with and we knew what our priorities were.  And we will reassess in 3 or 4 days.

Was it the right plan?  Yes.  It took the needs of everyone into account.

Best,

Dr D

In the last post, we looked at the connection between your dog’s brain chemistry and an explanation of general ways you can use this knowledge to help fight canine cancer.

Now, let’s focus on some specific techniques that can be used in day to day life.

It is clear now that your dog’s brain chemistry has a major impact on cancer development and progression.  By changing this brain chemistry, we can help your dog.

Long term mental states like boredom, lack of social interactions (loneliness), aggravation, lack of physical release (little exercise), and few opportunities to build self esteem all lead to stress.

This is especially true if your dog cannot find a way to solve the problem.  So if we are interested in using every tool to help our dear ones fight cancer, providing solutions to these problems will help slow cancer progression.  This is extensively documented in published studies.

Translation? A longer and better life.

Canine boredom, isolation, and lack of stimulating exercise are likely pretty common.  Everyone is so busy today with our jobs, worries, families, and so on.  The truth is that many dogs end up being low on the life priority totem pole.

This is usually not anyone’s fault, but it just kind of happens.  Of course we need to put food on the table, the kids need attention, we need rest and our own time too.  And then comes our pets once these things are addressed.

Now though, it is clear that we need to pay attention to our four legged family members to make sure we fix the brain chemistry that leads to cancers.

Some of the best ways to help our dog’s brain chemistry is by stimulation.  This can be done in many different ways, depending on your dog’s preferences and abilities.  Build these in to your daily calendar, and make sure you:

Praise, praise, and praise more!  Let your dog feel your excitement for their accomplishments.

• Alter your dog’s environment. Take trips to new places.
• Change the route you take to walk your dog.
• Increase your dog’s number of walks.
• Provide your dog with new toys and use them to interact.
• Schedule play dates with other dogs.
• Bring your dog to dog parks for social interaction.
• Bring your dog to places where there are new people, or bring new people to your dog.
• Engage in new physical activities (stairs, hikes, change the pace of the walk, etc.)
• Start new gentle training programs (sit, shake, fetch, roll, stay, heel, catch, etc.)
• Use different brushes and combs and switch them up for frequent home grooming sessions.
• For older dogs, try warm compresses before exercise, then cool ones afterwards.
• Massage your dog.  Meditate with your dog. Question and talk to your dog.

Go ahead.  Make a list of things that would work for your dog, and don’t put limitations on these things.  You will be surprised at what your loved dog is still capable of.

Now, make a calendar with items on your list built in every day.

Finally, stick to it fiercely.  Without discipline, life’s flow will carry you downstream, leaving your dog on the bank of the river.

You will be amazed at how good it makes both you and your dog feel.

The Dog Cancer Survival Guide gives you the road map and tools you need in this difficult time.

Best,

Dr D

One of the most overlooked areas on conventional medicine today is the huge impact of brain chemistry on cancers.

No, I am not talking about some kind of “New Age” mumbo jumbo.  This is strait-up clinical medicine.

Here’s how it works, and how you can use this information to help your dog fight cancer.

First, let’s look at a definition.  Psychosomatic means the interaction between brain signals and body processes, including the body’s ability to fight existing cancers and those that may develop later.

The process in the body goes like this:  your dog’s brain gets information from the world using the senses- eyes, ears, touch and so on.  The brain then processes the info and makes patterns.  Next, it sends chemical signals into the bloodstream that “talk” to organs in the body.  The organs “listen” to the signals and respond.

For example, suppose your dog gets lonely often.  Or maybe he or she needs to get some exercise and feels frustrated.  Perhaps your four legged family member is bored frequently.

All of these are situations that don’t seem solvable to your dog (at least, without you taking steps to solve your dog’s problem).

Unsolvable situations produce stress in the body.  The brain computes that something is wrong and cannot fix the issue.  Signals are sent from the brain to the adrenal glands, nerve endings and other areas in the body.

The adrenals and nerve endings respond to the signals by secreting hormones and chemical signals of their own.  These signals are detected by immune system cells.

The immune system is designed to fight cancers.  When cancer develops, the ability of the immune system to fight the cancers has been overwhelmed.

When the immune system detects these chemical signals, key cancer-fighting immune cells become weakened.  This has been shown in publications.

Long term feelings of isolation, anxiety, boredom, and agitation lead to increased cancers in the body.

The key here is whether our dogs have a way to solve the problem or not.  Everyone gets a little aggravation in life.  But if it goes on for a long time and there is no way to fix it, there are real, measurable health problems that result.

This is the critical part of the process that really has a harmful impact on dogs with (or developing) cancer.

This was shown in an experiment with rats. There were two groups.  One group had to endure electric shocks, but they were provided with an escape route.  The other group was forced to experience the shocks, but they had no escape.

The rats with the escape route (providing a solution to the problem) had much lower rates of cancer development and cancer spread.

How many situations in your dog’s life contribute to isolation, boredom, anxiety, and a lack of physical or mental stimulation?

By taking some time to really put yourself in your dog’s shoes, and honestly asking yourself whether your dog could be creating these brain states, you can start fixing a real-life problem that could add time to your dog’s lifespan and help life quality to boot.

The best way is to take 20-30 minutes in your day and block it off for this.  If you don’t schedule time, other life details will prevent you from getting it done and it will never happen.  We are all busy these days.

Identify times you are away from your dog.  Look at how much social interaction your dog gets (with other pets or people) every day, week, or month.  Write them down.  How much mental stimulation does your dog get?  How many times does your dog end up panting after an activity (physical stimulation)?  How much interactive, dynamic play does your dog get?

Next, make a schedule. Daily, weekly, and monthly.  Put activities in this schedule that fix the problem.

For more tools you can use to help  your dog, that you will not find in conventional cancer medicine, check out The Dog Cancer Survival Guide.

Best,

Dr D

One of the most common chemotherapy drugs used today is cyclophosphamide.

This medication can be given at home, as it comes as a pill that is given by mouth.  It can also be given as an injection in the veterinary hospital.

One of the side effects that is seen in about 1 in 10 dogs on this drug involves the bladder.  The signs you will see if your dog is experiencing this side effect include:

• urinating small amounts frequently
• straining to urinate
• posturing for a long time with little urine being produced
• blood in the urine
• having to go outside more frequently to urinate

These are all signs of bladder inflammation.  When the bladder gets inflamed, our dogs feel like they need to go urinate more often.  They also feel like they need to empty their bladder more, even when they have passed all the urine they have and their bladder is empty.

We make these assumptions about how they feel since this is what people experience when we have bladder inflammation, which happens with problems like bladder infection.

The reason a dog might get an inflamed bladder while taking cyclophosphamide is this drug can cause a condition called sterile hemorrhagic cystitis (SHC). This can be translated to mean “an inflamed bladder that bleeds without an infection.”

The reason this can happen is that dogs on the drug accumulate a by-product in their bladder called acrolein.  This chemical is produced in the body when cyclophosphamide is broken down, and it collects in the urine.

Oncologists will often combine cyclophosphamide with medications like prednisone or prednisolone, which can decrease the odds of SHC. If diuretics are administered when the drug is given in the hospital, it can also lower the risks.

It is important to differentiate SHC from an actual bladder infection, which is also common in dogs with cancer receiving chemo. The signs you see with a bladder infection are identical to SHC, but antibiotics are used to treat an infection.  They will do nothing for SHC however, which requires different steps.

So it is important to get your dog’s urine tested if you see these signs to find out if infection or SHC is the real culprit.

The Dog Cancer Survival Guide has a lot of information on how you can address possible side effects from chemotherapy in your dog if you would like more on important topics like this.

Best,

Dr D

Cancer is due to the fact that our dogs are living longer.

Right?

This was recently stated by a publicly aired news broadcast, by an expert.  And the topic was dog cancer.

I’m here to tell you that this is incorrect.  And as usual, there is ample back-up evidence. But first, some clarifications.

In the past we have confused two concepts.  One is that of longevity as cause of diseases like cancer.  This means that the addition of years of life is a cause of a problem.  So from this viewpoint, time is the main factor, and the fact that time is passing actually creates the disease.

The second concept is different.  This viewpoint includes the fact that many diseases are created at a very slow pace.  Many of these diseases, like cancer, are mainly due to issues found in more industrialized civilizations.   From this viewpoint, we are looking at disease-causing issues that happen at a very sluggish (but consistent) pace.

Of course you can see that these are separate ideas.  The first is that longevity is a cause.  The second is that we have causes, but they take a long time to have an effect.

Cancer is not caused by the fact that the pet and human populations are living longer. Cancer is caused by things that take a while to create cancer in the body.

Why does this matter?  Is it just to throw ideas around and act like armchair philosophers?

The reason it matters is that if cancer has definite causes that can be identified and addressed, singly or in groups, we can deal with this problem.  On the other had, if cancer is caused by old age, clearly we are powerless, since we cannot slow time’s passage.

Who wants to be powerless?  Who wants to make things better?

I’d take the second position.  And I’m sure you would to.

If you would like to learn more about the real-life, actual causes of cancer that are in our world right now, and you want to help your dog, you should check out The Dog Cancer Survival Guide.

Best,

Dr D