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

Dr. Demian Dressler has been writing articles for DogCancerBlog.com since 2008. If you’re looking for excellent advice and insight into your dog’s cancer, this site has hundreds of articles to use. You can search using the box above or choose a topic from the navigation menu. And you can always ask us for help!

Why Your Personality Is So Important to Your Dog with Cancer

When treating dog cancer, knowing your personality and priorities helps you make treatment choices that will help your dog AND feel right to you.

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How to Know If Your Dog Is In Pain

How to know if dog is in pain? There are dozens of signs of pain in dogs, and MOST of them are unrecognizable. Learn how to know if your dog is hurting. 🙁

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Are You a Dog Lover, or a Dog Guardian?

Who’s in charge of your decisions when it comes to your dog’s cancer? You are.

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How Important Are All Those Expensive Diagnostic Dog Cancer Tests?

You could easily spend over $1,000 just to diagnose your dog’s cancer. Are any of those tests worth it? Which ones?

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Is my dog too old for cancer treatments? Face of black dog.

Is My Dog Too Old For Cancer Treatments?

Age is not a disease, but when your dog is diagnosed with cancer, it can be confusing to know if your dog too old for cancer treatments. Dr. Dressler explains…

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How Old Is Too Old to Treat Dog Cancer?

I hear this question a lot: “Isn’t my dog too old to treat for cancer?” The answer is: No! Age is not a disease. I have many 12-plus year old patients that are otherwise healthy and strong. They may have some early kidney disease, a heart murmur, thyroid disease, arthritis, but they are still good…

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Holiday Foods and Dog Cancer

We all want our dogs to join in the holiday fun. Here are some safety tips to keep in mind.

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Smoking, Second-Hand Smoke, Third-Hand Smoke and Dog Cancer

We are all becoming more aware of healthy nutrition and lifestyle.  Much of what was deemed innocuous in our grandparents time is being exposed as risky. We’ve known for decades that smoking is hazardous to the smoker, and the term ‘second-hand smoke’ soon followed as science discovered that you didn’t need to smoke to be…

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Should My Regular Veterinarian Give My Dog Chemotherapy?

Here’s a touchy subject for us to look at: why can’t my regular veterinarian give my dog chemotherapy? Do I really need to see a specialist? I am often asked these questions by clients, and my answer is always the same:  no. That might sound harsh, but let’s look at this a little closer. If…

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Common Cancer Mistake: Assuming Chemotherapy Is Not an Option

Do dogs suffer during chemotherapy for their cancer treatments? This veterinary oncologist has an answer that might surprise you.

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True Tails from Others Who’ve Battled Dog Cancer

Read inspiring “true tails” of people who’ve read The Dog Cancer Survival Guide and helped their dogs fight (and even beat) cancer.

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Dog Cancer Mistake - Paying for Tests You Don't Need

Common Dog Cancer Mistake: Doing Too Many Diagnostic Tests Before Seeing the Oncologist

When you first hear your dog has cancer, you may panic and feel that everything must be done, and now. It’s true, cancer is an urgent situation, and it’s a great idea to find out as much information about your dog’s cancer as is possible. But how many diagnostic tests should you have your vet…

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Prednisone for Dogs: When to Start with Lymphoma

Prednisone for dog lymphoma may be recommended. It’s true, it treats lymphoma, and is used a lot in chemo. BUT … using it too soon could be a mistake.

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Five common mistakes with cancer surgery. Dog in bed with bandage on head.

Five Common Mistakes with Cancer Surgery, and How To Avoid Them In Your Dog

These are the five most common mistakes with cancer surgery. Read on to find out how to save both time and money (yes, really).

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Salt

We are talking about plain old table salt, otherwise known as sodium chloride. Sodium chloride is an electrolyte and necessary for bodily function, for both humans and dogs. Salt should not be used as a seasoning for your dog’s food as it can create a slightly acidic condition in the body, which elevates the chance…

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What Is Full Spectrum Cancer Care?

How does Full Spectrum Cancer Care differ from conventional, holistic, or alternative care? It drops the bias and embraces tools from any system of medicine that have been shown to help fight cancer.

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Tell Your Dog’s True Tail

Have an inspiring True Tail to tell? Submit it here and help other dog lovers!

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Primary Lung Tumors, part 2

Unlike people where lung cancer is one of the top five cancers and the leading cause of cancer related deaths worldwide, primary lung cancer is very rare in dogs. Dogs are often diagnosed with lung cancer as in incidental finding during a routine geriatric screen. Lung Cancer Symptoms in Dogs Often dogs have NO clinical signs,…

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Uncommon Tumors: Primary Lung Tumors, Part 1

As a boarded oncologist, I see not only the common cancers in dogs like lymphoma, mast cell tumors, osteosarcomas, hemangiosarcomas, and mammary cancers. But I also see the uncommon ones. Recently I have been seeing more of the uncommon tumors, and what’s even strange to me, I am seeing more that one within a few…

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Sienna and Sierra — a True Tail

Peggy Benson of Jacksonville, Florida, tells her True Tail about Sienna’s dog cancer. This beautiful Golden Retriever with adrenal carcinoma endured a complicated surgery on her cancer journey, and ended up giving a gift beyond price to her beloved family.

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How to Help Your Dog with Cancer When He Won’t Eat

When your cancer dog won’t eat, it’s really frightening. It makes you think they’re close to the end, right? Don’t panic – try these things to help.

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Food and Cooking Carcinogens

There were many studies, articles and books Dr. Dressler and Dr. Ettinger used when writing The Dog Cancer Survival Guide. Here is a list of some of the most important references about the use of food and cooking carcinogens. Please note that in vivo and clinical use citations were included whenever possible. We have also…

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Emotional Self-Management and Oxygen Mask Exercises

These important studies about emotional self-management were used as the basis for Dr. Dressler’s “oxygen mask exercises.”

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Surgery

Surgery is the most common conventional treatment veterinarians use to treat dog cancer of any kind. That’s because, surgery can sometimes cure cancer completely — especially if caught early enough. The chapter on surgery (what to expect, and how to care for your dog), is an important part of The Dog Cancer Survival Guide. Check…

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Transitional Cell Carcinoma

Transitional Cell Carcinoma (TCC) is a cancer of the dog’s urinary tract: bladder, ureters, urethra, or prostate gland. It’s aggressive and rarely curable, but there are many things you can do to help your dog’s longevity and life quality, just as with any other cancer type. There were many studies, articles and books Dr. Dressler…

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Vaccination (infant) and TH2 shift with potential cancer impact

There were many studies, articles and books Dr. Dressler and Dr. Ettinger used when writing The Dog Cancer Survival Guide. Here is a list of the most important references about the use of Vaccination (infant) and TH2 shift with potential cancer impact. Please note that in vivo and clinical use citations were included whenever possible.…

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Vegetables

There were many studies, articles and books Dr. Dressler and Dr. Ettinger used when writing The Dog Cancer Survival Guide. Here is a list of the most important references about the use of vegetables. Please note that in vivo and clinical use citations were included whenever possible. We have also included links to the papers,…

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Vitamin D and Sunlight

There were many studies, articles and books Dr. Dressler and Dr. Ettinger used when writing The Dog Cancer Survival Guide. Here is a list of the most important references about Vitamin D and Sunlight. Please note that in vivo and clinical use citations were included whenever possible. We have also included links to the papers,…

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Water

There were many studies, articles and books Dr. Dressler and Dr. Ettinger used when writing The Dog Cancer Survival Guide. Here is a list of the most important references about the use of water. Please note that in vivo and clinical use citations were included whenever possible. We have also include links to the papers,…

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dog bone cancer prognosis

What’s My Dog’s Prognosis? When to “Believe” Numbers You Hear from Your Vet

Dog Bone Cancer Prognosis: Dr. Susan Ettinger looks at two case studies to show how statistics cannot predict how an individual case of canine cancer will turn out.

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