Giving Your Dog Chemotherapy at Home, Safely
Sue Ettinger, DVM. Dip. ACVIM (Oncology). Dr. Sue is a boarded veterinary medical cancer specialist. As a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (Oncology), she is one of approximately 400 board-certified veterinary specialists in medical oncology in North America. She is a book author, radio co-host, and an advocate of early cancer detection and raising cancer awareness. Along with Dr. Demian Dressler, Dr. Sue is the co-author of The Dog Cancer Survival Guide: Full Spectrum Treatments to Optimize Your Dog’s Life Quality and Longevity.
Updated: January 12th, 2022
Summary
Have to give your dog chemotherapy at home? Dr. Susan Ettinger, DVM, Dip. ACVIM (Oncology) has tips to keep you and your loved ones safe.
I get a lot of questions about how to give your dog chemotherapy at home, safely (for example, during metronomic chemotherapy). In this article, I’m going to go over my answer for some of the most frequently asked questions.
Is my pet safe to be around?
Yes, your pet is safe to be around after treatment. Being around family members – humans and other pets in the home – is an important part of your pet’s life. Enjoying normal activities together – including petting, hugging, and kissing – are all safe.
However, the excretions (urine, feces, vomit) from pets receiving chemotherapy can be hazardous. It is therefore important to minimize our exposure to chemotherapy, and common-sense precautions should be taken.
If you are administrating oral chemotherapy at home
If you are administering chemo at home, please follow these precautions.
- Keep the medication in the vial, and do not store it in the kitchen.
- Ensure children and pets do not have access to the drugs.
- Do not eat, drink, or chew gum when giving the medication.
- Do not crush or break the pills or capsules.
- Wear unpowdered latex or non-latex gloves when handling the medication.
- Some medications, like Palladia, are coated, and you can handle the pills without gloves. However, the coating breaks down when the pill gets moist. So if your dog spits out the pill, please put on gloves prior to picking up to readminister.
- Dispose of the gloves promptly, and wash your hands thoroughly after administration.
Clean up after your pet
My primary safety concern is for people who are mixing and handling chemotherapy agents, like pills, at home.
For those of you who are bringing your dog home after a chemotherapy session in the hospital, there is less risk, because you are handling just the urine and feces.
Sounds gross, I know, but we think the metabolites in chemotherapy drugs have been broken down by the patient’s body by the time they reach the urine and feces.
These metabolites are far less active than the original drug was. So, it’s a safer scenario than the one above.
Still, please use common sense precautions and follow good basic hygiene.
- Wear gloves for handling feces, urine or vomit (i.e. if they have an accident in the house/apartment, or you are cleaning the litter box) for at least 72 hours after treatment.
- Soiled bedding should be washed separately and go through two wash cycles before being used again.
- Use detergent to clean floors, carpets, or countertops. Wear gloves when cleaning.
- Accidental exposure: Wash skin thoroughly. If your skin becomes irritated, contact your physician.
Get a copy of the Dog Cancer Survival Guide for more helpful tools and information
What if my other pet eats the poop of the dog getting chemo?
Ewww, gross.
But this happens, sometimes, right? So how much should you panic?
It depends on the chemo drug.
Some are excreted mostly in the urine, like cyclophosphamide. (That’s why it’s good to encourage your pet that gets this to pee on grass, where urine will drain quickly.)
If your dog has had a treatment with one of these drugs, the likelihood that another dog will literally ingest it is rather small. Your veterinarian will be able to tell you if the drug your dog is on is excreted in the urine.
Some drugs, like vincristine and doxorubicin, are metabolized and excreted in the feces, which may pose more of a problem.
If your dog has just had one of these drugs in a chemotherapy session, and your other dog (or any other dog) comes along and eats it, yes, there is a risk that dog would get a smaller dose of the broken down chemo metabolites.
For example, if a patient’s canine companion ate all the patient’s feces over a 72 hour period it would ingest about 30% the original dose. MUCH of that would be destroyed in the gastrointestinal tract and pooped out.
Remember it is not unchanged chemo drug being excreted, but metabolites and the risk is relatively low overall.
So again, use common-sense precautions to minimize exposure. This basically means picking up your dog’s poop as soon as it is released.
What if I’m Pregnant?
If you are pregnant, trying to become pregnant, are breast-feeding, are immunosuppressed, or are taking immunosuppressive medication:
- Please avoid contact with any chemotherapy drugs.
- Also, please avoid contact with your pet and your pet’s waste for a minimum of 72 hours after chemotherapy has been given.
- Talk to your physician.
Live Long, Live Well
Dr. Sue
Sue Ettinger, DVM. Dip. ACVIM (Oncology). Dr. Sue is a boarded veterinary medical cancer specialist. As a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (Oncology), she is one of approximately 400 board-certified veterinary specialists in medical oncology in North America. She is a book author, radio co-host, and an advocate of early cancer detection and raising cancer awareness. Along with Dr. Demian Dressler, Dr. Sue is the co-author of The Dog Cancer Survival Guide: Full Spectrum Treatments to Optimize Your Dog’s Life Quality and Longevity.
At the end of the article above, you mention if your pregnant you should avoid contact with your dog, what do you mean by this, their saliva or petting them? Can you please specify to what extent you recommend avoiding the dog?
My dog is on chlorambucil 2mg every other day for IBS. Is it safe for her to lick us..sometimes on the face? What about handling any accidents in the home with her urine and feces? How is chlorambucil metabolized and excreted?
Hi Fran, thanks for writing. Most drugs are not completely metabolized — some percentage of them pass through the body and exit intact in waste. Exactly how much is metabolized/used depends on a lot of factors on an individual level. It’s important to follow safety guidelines as issued by your veterinarian, for sure. I would ask your veterinarian about whether you should be concerned based on your dog’s weight and dosage. In general, we suggest not encouraging licking in the days after a dog has had chemotherapy, but some things can’t be avoided, of course — especially in some dogs! Please check with your vet about your dog’s specifics. <3
one of my dogs is receiving kemo, she sleeps in my bed, and so does the other dog. Is it safe for our other pup to stay in the same bed?
Hi Maria! I would worry about bodily fluids, but not just being close to each other. Enjoy your snuggles.
My dog is receiving chemotherapy at the moment. He tends to pee and poo on the grass but during the winter months while the grass is covered with snow we cannot clean it up we have to wait until spring. Meanwhile we have a raised bed where we planted our garlic (before he got diagnosed). I was wondering if it is safe to harvest the garlic and consume it in the spring knowing that there was chemo residues in the earth or the garlic roots? Like when the snow melts is it possible that the chemo gets in the garlic or can i even plant other vegetables in the risen bed?
Hi Arlo! What an interesting question. I would absolutely try to remove that snow while you can see it and put it somewhere else. We know that metabolites from chemo can be problematic, and some agents aren’t broken down all the way, so some chemo drugs enter the water supply unchanged 🙁 When the snow melts, it will undoubtedly enter the ground underneath. I personally wouldn’t be comfortable eating food from that soil. Your local garden center might have some ideas about how to “clean” the soil, but if you can scoop it up before it melts, I would!
Is it safe for a dog that is on 75mg of Pallidia to share a water bowl with the other pet in the house?
If my dog is on chlorambucil is it safe for her to lick me?
Compounded Pallidia still needs protective gloves.
My dog has cancer. Vet want to treat her. she had tumors around her hind quarters. They were removed but he wants to continue chemo. Should I? She is a pit bull.
Hello Sue,
Thanks for writing, and we’re sorry to hear about your girl. As we’re not veterinarians, we can’t offer you medical advice. However, we can provide you with information based off Dr. D’s writings 🙂
In the Dog Cancer Survival Guide, Dr. D highly recommends that you become your dog’s Primary Healthcare Advocate. You know yourself, and your girl the best.
There are a number of factors that you have to take into consideration (finances, your dog’s personality, your personality, treatment options, age, etc) before making a decision, as each dog and their health situation is different.
There is no “one right fit” with cancer treatment. This is where Treatment Plan Analysis can be really beneficial. Here’s an article on how to end treatment plan analysis paralysis https://www.dogcancerblog.com/blog/make-decisions-dog-cancer-treatments/
You also have to factor in your guardian type. Do you want your girl to be as comfortable as possible? Are you okay with handling the side effects of particular treatments? How important is quality of life? Do you think she would be the same after chemo? These are just some of the questions that you have to answer! Here’s a link to an article on guardian types that you may find helpful: https://www.dogcancerblog.com/blog/why-your-personality-is-so-important-to-your-dog-with-cancer/
As Dr. D writes in the Dog Cancer Survival Guide, there are a number of treatment options, besides chemo, surgery, and radiation, in the Full Spectrum Cancer Care that you could consider, under your vet’s supervision– Nutraceuticals, Diet, Brain Chemistry Modification, and Immune System Boosters and Anti-metastatics.
We can’t tell you what the right choice is because we’re not vets, each dog and their situation is different, and we don’t know your girl. But you do. And once you figure out what is most important to you both, you can then make a more informed decision
We hope this helps!
Hello, I have a male Irish Wolfhound going through CHOP for Lymphoma. We also have a still growing young adult and a 6 month old puppy in the home. We separate our male for the first 72 hours after chemo, allowing him access to our family room, dog room and outdoor concrete pad through a dog door for elimination. We’ve previously hosed down the pad after spraying with a hydrogen peroxide cleaner and allowing it to sit, but I’m not sure if this actually does any good and I’m still unsure about letting the growing dogs use that part of our yard ever. What is the best way to manage the situation to allow them access to our dog yard, particularly during inclement weather? How long do the metabolites stay active on concrete? How worried should I be about their growth being damaged by cytotoxic waste residue? Thanks!
Hello Tamara, thanks for writing. Unfortunately, we don’t necessarily know for SURE how long these metabolites stay active. As Dr. D points out in the chapter on Cancer Causes, pharmaceuticals in our water system in the U.S. are a real (unaddressed) problem.
Drugs can stay active for a very long time before they break down, and even drugs that have been metabolized by our bodies (or in this case your dog’s body) can still be active in part, even after they pass. As Dr. Ettinger (Dr. Dressler’s oncologist co-author and the author of this article) points out, you don’t want to get paranoid about these things, but you have to take safety into account.
In general, the way you are cleaning sounds about right, although detergent (soap, even dishsoap) might be a good thing to add. Also, if your big guy can pee on the grass, it would be easier for the urine to drain. We assume you are picking up feces immediately and throwing away the tightly sealed bag.
Meanwhile, keeping your younger dogs away from your big guy’s restroom while he is on chemo is a good idea. But keep in mind that we all do the best we can! Next time you visit your oncologist, you might ask about your current protocol and ask if that is a good plan, just to be sure. We hope that helps.
Thank you! I’ll ask for more clarity at his next appointment.
Hello, I have a male Irish Wolfhound going through CHOP for Lymphoma. We also have a still growing young adult and a 6 month old puppy in the home. We separate our male for the first 72 hours after chemo, allowing him access to our family room, dog room and outdoor concrete pad through a dog door for elimination. We’ve previously hosed down the pad after spraying with a hydrogen peroxide cleaner and allowing it to sit, but I’m not sure if this actually does any good and I’m still unsure about letting the growing dogs use that part of our yard ever. What is the best way to manage the situation to allow them access to our dog yard, particularly during inclement weather? How long do the metabolites stay active on concrete? How worried should I be about their growth being damaged by cytotoxic waste residue? Thanks!