A couple weeks ago, my husband and I went out to do some errands and left our two dogs at home. Both dogs were happy and in good health when we left. However, when we got back about a half hour later, we noticed that our dog Dutch (8 year old, Goldendoodle mix) was limping. We just assumed that he had slipped on the stairs or landed on his paw wrong when jumping from the couch. He could put some weight on it and did not appear to be in a great deal of pain, so we decided to wait for the injury to heal. We did not believe it to be anything more than a twisted ankle. The next day, there was swelling in the joint but again we thought nothing of it as a twisted ankle swells. He would run around with a slight limp while outside and on walks. The injury never really seemed to slow him down. 

After about a week and a half, the swelling never went down. It even seemed to become harder. This was worrisome, so I convinced my husband to take him to the vet. We waited for a while in the waiting room until we were called in. The vet took a look at the joint and told us he wanted to do an x-ray. He came back and put the x-ray up on the board and proceeded to tell us that he believed Dutch had a tumor. This news frightened us. The vet went on to tell us that the only real treatment for such a thing was amputation followed by rounds of chemo and even then the prognosis was not good. It would maybe give us another year. He then asked if we wanted to do a chest x-ray to see if the cancer had spread. Luckily, there were no signs of cancer in the chest region. While it is difficult to remember due to our state of mind, we think that he had said that he did not believe it to be osteosarcoma but he also did not say much else on the matter. He finished off the exam by telling us that they were not equipped to handle such things and referred us to a specialist in a nearby city while also giving us a prescription for an anti-inflammatory.

That brings us to today. We are still waiting on the oncology department to give us a call three days later. We have been doing some research in hope of informing ourselves of the possibilities while waiting for this call. Dutch never seems to be in any major pain of discomfort. He can still walk around on it and even runs from time to time. We harbor a small amount of hope that it is nothing more than some sort of arthritic infection, fungal infection, Lyme disease or some other sort of malady. However, the thought of cancer always looms in our minds. I will include the pictures of the x-rays to see what other people think. I did not think it resembled the x-rays I have seen of cancer patients and neither does my husband. We are just so stressed and hoping for the best. We just want things to be alright. No matter what, we are happy to find a community of fellow pet owners that understand our plight and love their pets like family. At the very least, we found some support. [Image Can Not Be Found]