Skip to content
Featuring Demian Dressler, DVM and Sue Ettinger, DVM, Dip. ACVIM (Oncology), authors of The Dog Cancer Survival Guide
collection

Choosing Treatments with Confidence

A Dog Cancer Wake Up Call

From time to time I receive comments from readers who express opinions about what they will consider in treating their dog’s cancer. These particular folks segregate themselves into a single group…the “anti” people. First, we have those who are very impressed with conventional veterinary care.  This is my background, so I see the appeal. Big…

Read Article

Pau D’Arco for Dogs With Cancer: Be Careful Says Dr. Dressler

In the last post, I focused on really looking at the source of the information you are receiving about your dog’s cancer.  Let’s get into some specific examples of questionable “intelligence” you may have received. Some, claiming authority in the area of supplements for dog cancer, are pushing Pau D’Arco.  Be careful, everyone! Let’s look…

Read Article

False Hopes and How to Spot a Charlatan…

So many times I hear of the benefits of a new (or ancient) miracle treatment for dog cancer.  Often these are from someone who has seen the benefit, or believe they see the benefit, of a certain protocol. The fact is that in most cases these claims have not been established to the point where…

Read Article

Keep Yourself and Your Dogs Safe with Palladia

Palladia is the first FDA-approved drug for dog cancer.  It is a chemotherapy medication, and as such it is a big gun. When I say big gun, I mean that there are side effects and issues that you need to be aware of.  And some of you may have not heard this yet.  Since a…

Read Article

Carcinogenic Chemo Drugs

One of the biggest ironies I have encountered are carcinogenic chemotherapy drugs. Sound odd to you?  Well, I don’t blame you!  When I first found out about it I was shocked.    Medication used for fighting cancer actually increasing the odds for cancer later? Now, before everyone gets reactionary, we have to temper this topic…

Read Article

The Cost of My Dog’s Life, part 2

In the last post, I blogged on what one can do to deal with the difficult financial issues attached to dog cancer care.  In this one, I would like to widen back, to help with some of the more personal issues about the subject. To be sure, the real-world money issue is a basic, real…

Read Article

The Cost of My Dog’s Life, part 1

If you are a dog lover coping with the diagnosis of dog cancer, at some point you will be forced to deal with costs.  In this economic climate, many are faced with heart-wrenching decisions. “I need to choose between my dog’s care and my own.” “I have to pick either paying for my home or…

Read Article

What Is Over-Treatment of Dog Cancer?

Decision-making when faced with a dog cancer diagnosis can be tough.  Treatment outcome, age, cost, and side effects all can weigh heavily on the mind of a dog lover. During the first decision-making period, so much has to be weighed.  The difficult part in this process is that nothing seems to be for sure.  Objective…

Read Article

My Dog is Acting Fine … And Got Diagnosed With Cancer?!?

If your dog is acting fine, even though she has cancer, there could be a couple of reasons. Read this article to discover what they are.

Read Article

Where Do I Begin?

“I am overwhelmed with all the information I am reading to help my dog with cancer.” Does this sound familiar to anyone out there? Most of the readers of this blog are searching for information. Once a true malignancy has developed, the realities can feel utterly unacceptable. This leads to information gathering.  Whenever we are…

Read Article

How Did This Happen?

I came across an article today that caught my attention. In Edinburgh, a 9 year old Rottweiler was found abandoned by it’s owner.  He was quite ill, very thin, painful and weak.  This Rott had been tied with a leash and left. As if this were not enough, the dog had end-stage cancer.  The cancer…

Read Article

Why Test For Heartworm But Not Cancer?

I was recently thinking about a little problem us veterinary professionals are faced with. We seem to have forgotten about relative risks. A relative risk is simply the risk of something in comparison to something else.  Take the risk of cancer versus the risk of heartworm in a dog on heartworm preventative. Now, I am…

Read Article

Do Numbers Matter?

A lover of a dog with cancer needs to come up with an plan that makes sense. The first step in any plan is arming oneself with answers, or data that relates to the situation. There are two basic areas that we need to focus on. The first is what can we do to maintain…

Read Article

Why Is There No Standard of Care?

I was recently sent an interesting question from a reader about the right way to deal with a lump. The question revolved around standard veterinary practices upon finding an external mass in a dog. Is it correct to simply monitor and wait for a cancer to grow before doing something about it? Good question! The…

Read Article

Why We Need To Think Outside the Box

The world’s tallest dog is a now a cancer patient. I recently came across this story, from a local news website in California.  Gibson is a Great Dane, weighing in at a whopping 170 lbs. Gibson is presently 7 years old, which is definitely a senior citizen for a dog of this breed. Recall that…

Read Article

How Long Does My Dog Have?

It is very important to do what we can to avoid ongoing depression when trying to cope with cancer in our dogs.  Ongoing depression is exhausting, steals our reserves, and clouds judgment. It decreases your dog’s chances of good life quality during a life with cancer.  Yes, your ongoing depression. Please do not misunderstand me. …

Read Article

What Is The Best Supplement for Dog Cancer?

We are faced with some hard choices when in a war against dog cancer.  The truth is, as dog lovers,  often we feel pretty undergunned and overwhelmed, with choices that range from not-so-great to downright awful. One of the difficulties many have is the choice among the supplements discussed in this blog or in The…

Read Article

Everything is overwhelming…

Many dog lovers, especially those of you who just received the news that your dog has cancer, feel very overwhelmed.  This is very common and completely natural. So many questions arise.  How did this happen?  Where did the cancer come from? Why wasn’t this picked up before?  Is it the food? Vaccines? Chemicals? What do…

Read Article

But my vet has not heard of this….

Dear dog lovers, I have been deluged with comments that some vets out there, maybe even most, have not heard of many of the approaches to dealing with cancer that are beyond surgery, chemo and radiation. As a consequence, there seems to be a large “black box” as to what to do, how to arrive…

Read Article

Chronic Morphine May Worsen Dog Cancer

Well, in this post I want to give the readers some cutting edge new developments in dog cancer pain control. For decades, morphine has been a good old standard in pain control, both in dog and human medicine.  Many oncologists and veterinarians involved in treating dogs afflicted with cancer use morphine to help these patients.…

Read Article

Is it for me or for my dog?

Decision making when loving a dog with a cancer diagnosis can be tough. Many times we will experience some degree of confusion in decision making.  There are many options that are presented.  Should I allow chemotherapy? Amputation?  Is radiation really worth it? I think that a lot of the difficulty may not actually relate to…

Read Article

New Antioxidant Info For Managing Dog Cancer

Got some new stuff for everyone into vitamins and antioxidants in cancer treatment for their loved dogs. Recall we are talking about cancer treatment, not cancer prevention. These are two different categories gang, with different considerations. You may recall also that the big deal is that there has been concern with free radical scavenging, which…

Read Article

Is The Cause of Cancer Really Not Known?

Conventional vets (and I count myself among this group) suggest that the cause of cancer is not known. Well, this statement rests on a faulty premise, because there is no single cause of cancer.  Cancer is the product of many separate steps that all must occur before the disease happens. So of course the cause…

Read Article

Dog Cancer Words You Should Know: Grade and Stage

I think it is important to clear up some words about dog cancer, and cancer in general.  It helps to define what you are talking about with the vet or oncologist so you can get the best info to make your decisions. As your dog’s primary health advocate, you will be called upon to make…

Read Article

Prejudice in viewpoints on Dog Cancer Care

One of the things I realized in my quest for defining what I’ve coined a “full spectrum approach” to treating cancer is personal bias. I am not talking about racial or sexual discrimination of course.  Rather, something I realized that we all carry within us, and I include myself in this, is the presence of…

Read Article

Vitamin C for Canine Cancer Patients?

Many have heard of the Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling.  After winning the prize in chemistry in 1954, he went off on this tangent and decided to be the major proponent of vitamin C for health. Lots of people became pretty excited, and decided to see if Vitamin C did anything to cancer cells in…

Read Article

What about Ozone Therapy and Dog Cancer?

Ozone therapy is one of those things that people ask about sometimes.  Kind of an odd bird, ozone. What’s the deal with ozone therapy and dog cancer? First of all, what is ozone anyway? Ozone is a gas that can be administered after it is dissolved in liquid, most commonly either IV or as an…

Read Article

Dog cancer: What is Micrometastasis and Why Do We Care?

I get a lot of inquiries that relate to whether a cancer is gone after it is removed, or what will be the outcome. Sometimes these are tough to answer, and the reason is micrometastasis. Micrometastsis occurs when a cancer spreads from a site, but the spread is not detectable by the usual means available. …

Read Article

But I want CLA for my dog with cancer!

Dear friends and fellow dog lovers, Here is the follow up on the CLA post… Just for the record, I don’t care for the stuff.  The forms of CLA are all mixed together usually.  At some point they will separate the forms of CLA in the mixture,  and then we can re-assess. At this time…

Read Article

Conjugated Linoleic Acid and Dog Cancer

I received a question about the use of safflower oil for a type of lyphosarcoma (lymphoma) in dogs.  The group of active ingredients in safflower oil is called the Conjugated Linoleic Acids (CLA). There are other things in safflower oil too that have effects, but this is a biggy. So should we be giving this…

Read Article
Scroll To Top