Your Role as Your Dog’s Guardian
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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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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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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Is There A Reason For All This Dog Cancer, part 2
In my last post, we looked at some of the connections between the environment, diet, and cancer development. We also examined how similar cancer is to the body’s reaction to an injury, as if it were healing a damaged or wounded organ in a deranged way. Today, I’ll continue some of my thoughts about why…
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Is There A Reason for All This Dog Cancer?
“Why did my dog get cancer? This is a tough question to answer, but I’d like to provide a bit of information about how I think about cancer to help answer this question. First, a bit about the disease itself, and what we know right now. Cancer cells look and behave like young body cells. …
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Is Optimism Appropriate in Dog Cancer?
Are we setting ourselves up for disappointment by holding on to optimism when it comes to dog cancer treatments?
Read ArticleOn Blame
For those coping with dog cancer, there is usually a very large amount of pain. First is the shock of the diagnosis, which is common. After this comes a flood of emotions of various kinds. For some it is confusion, trying to make sense of what it actually means to have a dog with cancer.…
Read ArticleReflections Four Days After Departure
This post will be a little different. I put my own dear Ginsu down four nights ago due to cancer. Ginsu was a loved cat, not the usual subject of the Dog Cancer Blog. Yet loss is loss, and as a provider of information that sometimes involves coping with loss, I would like to give…
Read ArticleAttitude Adjustment in Coping With Canine Cancer
One of the most shocking discoveries for some guardians starting their dog cancer journey is there seem to be few options. These guardians go to the vet or oncologist, and many times return from the visit with a very heavy burden that seems to have little relief. And strangely, it happens to those who ask…
Read ArticleMourning for Dogs and Their People
Whether or not a loved dog has cancer, time is limited. And one of the easiest things to forget is this fact of being a Guardian…we usually outlive our four legged family members. But we are not the only ones who mourn for the loss of loved ones. A recent article in Health Day described…
Read ArticleIs It Wrong To Treat Dogs for Cancer?
There has been a lot of press and debate lately about the high costs of veterinary medicine. Being in New York, I’m thinking of several NY Times articles. On the front page on April 5th, there was the article “New Treatments to Save a Pet, but Questions About the Costs.” This article highlighted the advances…
Read ArticleMy Dog is Young…and Has Cancer??
These days cancers in young dogs do not seem to be that rare. And they are especially difficult since it is such a shock. Often we have the perception that things like this do not happen, or should not happen. Yet we are faced with this brutal reality that seems impossible to accept and even…
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Pain Meds for Dogs: How to Manage Pain for a Dog With Cancer
Dog cancer pain control is really important, especially because dogs hide their pain symptoms so well. Learn how to treat your dog’s pain.
Read ArticleAnalysis Paralysis With Dog Cancer
When faced with a dog cancer diagnosis, many guardians experience an immediate sense of overwhelm. Of course, there is profound anger, sadness, numbness, grief, and the whole array of different responses to crises news. After a time, treatment options arise. And the facts are that modern medicine in many cases does not provide options that…
Read ArticleRight and Wrong In Dog Cancer
When coping with a diagnosis of canine cancer, many guardians worry about decisions they are making. Often there does not seem to be a “right” answer. Similarly, when learning about topics in cancer treatment, we may have a tendency to categorize as “good” and “bad”. An important fact of dog cancer, and many medical topics,…
Read ArticleThanksgiving and Coping With Dog Cancer
Thanksgiving and dog cancer….a horrific pair. Coping with canine cancer is heart-wrenching any time, and during the holidays can be almost unbearable. Here are some tips that can help a guardian cope with dog cancer during this season. During holidays, there are expectations that people will act or feel certain ways. If we see family,…
Read ArticleCan a Dog Cancer Diagnosis Be Wrong?
The news that a loved dog has cancer turns the world upside-down. Shock, dismay, disorientation, anger, and profound feelings of loss or sadness are common. Another common response is questioning the diagnosis. “My dog seems fine. The lump does not seem to bother her. His appetite is good. She still plays. How can he have…
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What I Would Do for My Dog with Lymphoma
What would a veterinarian oncologist do for her dog with lymphoma? Dr. Susan Ettinger tells us how she would handle this dread disease.
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Disruptive Stress and Dog Cancer
Coping with dog cancer is extremely stressful. Certain life events, like coping with dog cancer in your loved family member, create such stress that it actually disrupts normal thinking. This is called “disruptive stress.” This is very natural and common. However, disruptive stress has been shown to have a real negative effect. Disruptive stress creates…
Read ArticleGuardian Versus Dog Lover in Dog Cancer
There is a big difference between loving a dog and being a dog guardian. Guardianship implies being a protector. There is vigilance, resourcefulness, and problem solving mixed with love. Being a dog lover is just enjoying your relationship with your dog. Guardianship is required for dealing with canine cancer. Being a dog lover is not…
Read ArticleCritical Question when Weighing Dog Cancer Chemotherapy Options
Many Guardians are faced with difficult decisions when facing a dog cancer diagnosis. One of the toughest is whether to choose a treatment that seems more aggressive than others. A guardian should first get an idea of whether the expectation of the treatment is worse than the treatment. Many times dogs receiving chemotherapy treatment do…
Read ArticleHow Was This Not Found Earlier?
For Helen, Hunter, Guardians coping with dog cancer, and their dogs. Cancer seems to sneak up on us often. Many times, Guardians will wonder how it is possible that such a horrible disease could have been brewing while the dog was acting completely normal. And, how is it possible that the vet missed it during…
Read ArticleA Big Picture Viewpoint
The recent earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan can teach us a lot. I live on Maui. We had a little tsunami damage here from the same quake that has created the horror show in Japan. Now we face the potential of radiation exposure, depending on how the nuclear leak turns out. This is nothing compared…
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Grief: Not A Four Letter Word
Let’s face it. In the world of dog cancer, grief is part of the deal. But, the truth is that it is often ignored. Honestly, when many of us hear the word “grief”, we kind of turn away and try not to think about it. “Let’s deal with this.” “Let’s get the job done.” “How…
Read ArticleHow Do I know The Right Course of Treatment
The decisions surrounding dog cancer treatment can be complicated. This is not only because of the treatments themselves. Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation have multiple steps. Diet and supplements are not necessarily strait forward either. Steps to change a dog’s brain chemistry to a cancer fighting state take some doing as well. Boosting life quality needs…
Read ArticleTime and the Joys of Life in Dog Cancer
We are very busy in modern life. It seems as time goes on, the faster it speeds by. Dog cancer is connected in many ways to time. There is the question that is most pressing: “How much more time do I have?”. This is an important piece of information to get, along with the odds…
Read ArticleA Silver Lining in Dog Cancer
This is a blog about dog cancer. As such, you are probably here looking for some advice. Something useful to help this dire predicament you are in with your loved dog. Most often I will write about some outside the box approach to treating your dog’s disease. Maybe a new therapy that is coming up,…
Read ArticleAn Overview of What Else Can I Do?
The most common question I receive is: My dog has cancer. What else can I do? Well, this is a very short question that needs a very long answer. I will do my best to give the big categories here. First, get the data you need. A real guardian needs information to make aware decisions. …
Read ArticleTo Chemo or Not To Chemo?
One of the little known facts about veterinary medicine is that chemotherapy does not cure cancer in dogs, with few exceptions (except transmissible venereal tumor or the very rare lympho or something). I believe that many people are unaware of this fact. So we are left with a treatment modality that has a goal of…
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