Well first, I'd like to thank everyone on this site. It helped me through the times of Bear's surgery on January '09.

Bear is a 9 year old golden retriever and has been extremely hyper and eager to please his whole life (not to mention very territorial, but lots of dogs are these things). He is big for a golden retriever, weighing in at about 80 pounds before his surgery. He is also very tough which comes from his want to please and he tries not to complain. He walked on his cancer leg for about 2 months before the surgery and only had a small limp.

After the surgery, the doctor said it would be about 6 months with chemotherapy before we'd have to let him go. Well, he was recovering well before he started doing chemo, which caused a reaction in his blood that caused his white blood cells to harm his red blood cells and almost killed him. After coming out of this heavy bout with chemo and stopping treatment (about 6 weeks after surgery), he finally was back to his old self. He was happy and much calmer, as though he was now much wiser of a dog, and very pleasant to be around.

I am proud to say that he takes no medication anymore for anything (partially for fear of reaction, and partially because he just doesn't need any of it) and that his surgery was in January of 2009. The doctor said he would live at maximum until June or July. It has been over a year since his surgery and he is doing great and continues to do things that he loves like play fetch, eat, and go on walks. He is my own personal dog of steel.

I'll post pics when I can.