Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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Hello, our English Mastiff puppy Max developed a lump on his leg on April 9. We took him to the vet and tried antibiotics but it didn't work. We then were sent for xrays. The leg xray showed a nasty tumor and the lungs appeared clear (we know this happens 90% of the time). So less than 2 weeks after finding the lump we had his leg amputated. That was last Thursday, April 22nd. He is doing excellent… going up and down stairs, eating, using the potty outside and happily greeting all guests. However, last night the vet called and gave us results of the biopsy, it is Osteosarcoma. We have been given all kinds of facts and studies. At this point we are feeling that we will not go forward with chemo. We just want the time he has to be full of quality and happiness.
Have any of you chosen this path? And if so, can you share a little of your story with me?? I have never been thru anything like this and don't know anyone who has.
Max's Mom,
Beth
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Hi Beth,
Welcome to Tripawds, although I am sorry you have to come due to your young dog having amputation and cancer. Sounds like he's doing great though!
I am not doing chemo on my dog that was amputated October 2009. She had her left rear leg amputated due to soft tissue sarcoma on her knee. Due to the fact the pathologist's couldn't figure out exactly what type and the fact Maggie was soooo sick after amputation, the vet's opinion for me was to NOT do chemo. In a sense, I was relieved of that because (A) I didn't want Maggie to get further complications with chemo and (B) I treat my animals with holistic medicine as much as possible and the thought of chemo literally turned my own stomach.
If you are interested in homeopathic treatment for your pup, I would suggest Dr. Charles Loops in NC. He does phone consults...he doesn't need to see your dog. I am in Maine and that is how I use him...via phone consults. Maggie is on three remedies of which she gets twice daily, rotating between the three. Homeopathic treatment is very gentle on their systems and also FWIW, very cost effective for your pocketbook! Here's Dr. Loops website: http://www.char.....dvm.com/ I know of at least one other tripawd, Eisen I think her name is, that is being treated by Dr. Loops and has ostesarcoma I believe...and she's been I think almost two years..."Admin", is this correct?
Is this a better option than chemo? Well, guess no one really knows but I do know that it "feels right" for Maggie and I...that was our choice of treatment.
Tracy, Maggie's Mom
Maggie was amputated for soft tissue sarcoma 10-20-09
Maggie lost her battle with kidney disease on 8-24-13
bethieb said:
At this point we are feeling that we will not go forward with chemo. We just want the time he has to be full of quality and happiness.
Welcome and thanks for joining! Looks like we just missed you in the chat.
We'd be happy to share lots of our story ... just search Jerry's blog. But to make a loooong story short, we opted not to do IV chemo with Jerry when he was given just a four to six months to live after his osteosarcoma amputation. We also chose not to get regular x-ray checkups.
He ended up living nearly two years. We attribute this primarily to his healthy diet. When the lung mets showed up at about 16 months, we did start him on metronomics and K9 Immunity / Transfer Factor supplements from Aloha Medicinals. You'll find many more links to helpful feedback on the Diet, Medications, and Supplements pages of the Tripawds Nutrition blog .
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Our Mastiff Tazzie had her RF leg amputated due to osteosarcoma when she was 6 years old and she lived 14 months after chemo. She had carboplatin IV 5 doses 3 weeks apart with no side effects. In general the younger dogs have more aggressive cancer and your best chance of remission is with chemo. However many dogs here have done well without chemo but I'm not sure if any were that young. I am a veterinarian and we recently saw a 1 1/2 year old Golden Ret. with OSA that had amputation at our clinic and several types of chemo with the oncologist and he only lived a few months so it is very hard to predict.
You have done the most important thing which is to remove the painful leg!
Your dog is very cute, please keep us updated.
Pam
Hi Beth
Max is so young! We opted to do chemo for Catie (6-year old Golden Retriever). She had her front right leg amputated on January 13. So far she's had four of six proposed treatments. She's definitely had some off-days after treatments; but the good days have still far outnumbered the bad. I hate the chemo days and after-chemo days but my husband and I opted to do the treatments because of the "median" survival rates we were given at the time of positive diagnosis for osteosarcoma. It's a tough decision to make but, as already said, the most important thing has been done already - the removal of the diseased and painful leg has already improved his quality of life! He sounds like he's doing great.
Look forward to updates. He looks very sweet.
Carmen
Catie -
Birthday – November 4 2003
Amputation – January 13 2010
Crossed the Bridge – June 2 2011
Hi Beth,
I'm so sorry to hear about your sweet Max. Poor baby, he is so young...
My 10yr old golden Jake didn't have chemo after his amputation... and he only lived about 8 weeks after his surgery. But he had been limping on and off for several months before that. We thought it was just due to arthritis... so maybe his cancer was already slowly spreading by the time he was diagnosed and had his surgery. Every dog is so different... so I don't know if there is a right or wrong answer to your question.
If you chose not to go the chemo route, then at least change his diet to something more healthy and supplements too. I switched my Jake over to Blue Buffalo Holistic food, plus I'd cook a chicken or turkey stew weekly and add that to his dry food. I also supplemented with high dose glucosamine/chondroitin, fish oil and other stuff... but in our case it was too late.
So all I can tell you is to love and enjoy Max for as long as he has left... It may be just a few months, or it may even be over a year or so. I wish your Max all the best and hope that his leg was amputated before anything spread. Keep us posted on his progress!
Angel Jake's Mom
Jake, 10yr old golden retriever (fractured his front right leg on 9/1, bone biopsy revealed osteosarcoma on 9/10, amputation on 9/17) and his family Marguerite, Jacques and Wolfie, 5yr old german shepherd and the newest addition to the family, Nala, a 7mth old Bengal mix kittie. Jake lost his battle on 11/9/2009, almost 8 weeks after his surgery. We will never forget our sweet golden angel… http://jakesjou.....ipawds.com ….. CANCER SUCKS!
Wow, thanks for the support and replies everyone! You all are great. I know he is so young, this is one of the main reasons we aren't going with chemo. Our vet has a very good oncologist friend that has been helping us and she basically said that in a puppy this young it spreads so quickly that doing chemo really isn't helpful. So we figured the fact that his prognosis is so grim, we will just keep him happy for as long as God gives us. We will never know if this was right or wrong but it is a decision that somebody has to make.... too bad it is us. 
I definitely want to switch his food. We talked about supplements and switching to organic. From reading your stories, it seems maybe that isn't enough? What are the essential supplements and do all of you do a homeade diet?
Thanks again!!
Hello Beth, Gus had his front left amputated 3 weeks ago wednesday. Like you I asked about chemo. Our vet said it would cost between 1800-2000. He was going to see if it was something he could do or find someplace close because if not it would be an hour and a half drive each way. Gus is the best he's been the last 2 months, is probably 95% himself again and I am enjoying every minute seeing him wag with enthusiasm and in no pain, and after some advice and reading the experiences of others, I have opted not to do it. My feeling is if he did have a side effect from it, less quality time for him, and he isn't that wild about riding in a vehicle. Our biopsy came back negative but we had x-rays read by both our vet and Ohio state and the feeling was cancer. He was in quite a bit of pain the week before the surgery and those first two were pretty tough, I just didn't want to put him through any more discomfort if he did have any side effects. It's a tough call, but I am comfortable with this decision , not knowing what the future will bring is kind of scary, but he is happy, you can see it in his eyes. Good luck with your decision and realize the choice you make is what you feel is best for Max.
My buddy Gus had a left front amputation on April 7, 2010 and lived a great life until July 26,2010
bethieb said:
What are the essential supplements and do all of you do a homeade diet...
Thanks for asking! Questions like this are exactly why we started the Tripawds Nutrition blog. Specifically, the Supplements page has many links to more information about many supplements recommended by members in the forums.
Had we been aware of the K9 Immunity and Transfer Factor supplements, we probably would have started Jerry on those much earlier than we did.
Other members have had great success using Power Mushrooms, another immune system supplement.
Doctors researching Artemisinin – an extract from the plant Artemisia Annua (Sweet Wormwood) – agree that it is safe, and can kill
osteosarcoma cells in a petri dish.
Dr. Jessica Waldman recently recommended Nature
Made SAM-e as the best pain relief supplement for dogs in our
recent Live Ask A Vet chat.
Cosequin, Asequan and SynFlex are all great glucosamine supplements for maintaining healthy joints and hips.
A high quality Omega Fish Oil supplement is also recommended by
most vets.
We also just reviewed Honest Kitchen premium dehydrated dog foods (and treats) which are a wonderful alternative to preparing homemade dog food.
Finally, Dr. Demian Dressler’s Dog Cancer Survival Guide is an essential e-book to help your dog fight
canine cancer.
Now you have your homework cut out for you ... hope this helps!
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Here's what Maggie gets:
She eats Honest Kitchen Embark or Preference or Thrive as these are the lowest in carbohydrates. I add raw meat to all mixes(you MUST do so on Preference as that is meat free mix). Embark and Thrive I mix 1:1 meat/mix ratio. For Preference I mix 2:1 meat/mix ratio. It can be made 1:1 but I put more protein to lower the carbs down even more. I also use Urban Wolf Premix and that has even more protein in it – that mix mixes up to ~ 5% carbs, whereas the Honest Kitchen mixes are 10.6% for Preference mixed w/ 95% ground beef at 2:1 mix, Embark would be at 17.87% carbs WITHOUT extra meat added(I haven't figured out carbs with meat added yet) and Thrive is at 19.6% carbs WITHOUT added meat. I read an article once by Dr. Ogilvie and his diet suggested 20% carbs for cancer diet, so I keep my numbers under that for what I feed. I use Primal ground meats with these mixes.
For supplements Maggie gets OmegaMaine fish oil in large doses, 4Life Transfer Factors Complete(which has mushrooms etc in it) and Dr. Dressler's ApoCaps. Maggie gets Glyco Flexx III for joints. I also have Maggie on Animal Naturals K9 Super Fuel for her muscle health.
I, too, highly recommend Dr. Dressler's book.
Tracy, Maggie's Mom
Maggie was amputated for soft tissue sarcoma 10-20-09
Maggie lost her battle with kidney disease on 8-24-13
Hi Beth and Max
My bullmastiff Titan was 5 when he was diagnosed with OS. We did amuptation and chemo. He was doing great but at our 5th chemo visit we found out it had went to his lungs. It was a shock even to the doctor since he seemed to be doing so great. It is a hard decision to make. I spent about 10-12k for everything. I didnt regret anything except we lost Titan 6 months after his amuptation. OS is different for every dog so it is so hard. Plus it doesnt help that you have decide everything so quickly. Good luck. Whatever you do Max knows you love him.
Heidi and Angel Titan
Magic is an 11 year old and had his amputation on March 11th. We started carboplatin (chemo) three weeks later. He did have a bump when his white blood cell count went way down 10 days or so out. He had no problems with the first chemo. We went in for the second chemo and I said go ahead and do chest xrays if you want (only because they were doing another xray for me..not cancer related) and she did and unfortunately we had two definite and one maybe lung mets. So they changed the chemo to doxorubican. He has had one treatment and had no sides. We just went in today for the mid way blood test and she will be doing another chest xray on the 7th. Assuming the blood work is ok. At the time of the next chest xray, if they are the same or smaller (oh crossing fingers and paws) she will do an echocardiagram to be sure his heart is good and healthy and do another treatment. The vet said today that there is another chemo that has "no papers" as of yet but is out there just in case.
It is so so hard to decide whether to do the chemo or not...I see the cases where the longevity is amazing on just natural stuff and wonder if I goofed. However, we are on this road now for better or worse and everything else is going amazingly well. He is probably having more fun now than he did in the couple of years prior to this experience!! And yes, in case I didn't state it right, I know if things go sideways on the chemo, I can just quit and we will concentrate on quality of life and forget medical intervention.
It is a total crapshoot is what I have discovered from reading on this site. There doesn't seem to be a predictor...Max is so young and adorable...I wish you good luck on your journey.
Hi Beth. So sorry to hear about Max. I dont have any advise- I'm new here too. You came to the right place though. These people are great with support & advise. I wish you guys the best.
Hi Max,
I can only ditto what tigerbear said - except I'm not new. I just haven't gone thru cancer. But I wanted send you a warm welcome and let you know that whatever you decide - will be the right decision.
Many hugs during this very difficult time.
Comet's mom
Comet - 1999 to 2011
She departed us unexpectedly January 23, 2011 at the age of 12 1/2.
She was born with a deformed front leg and a tripawd all of her life.
I met a family at work who had come in to buy some things to remind them of their bernese mt. dog that had recently died at age 10. We got to talking, and I found out that at age 2, this dog was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. they did amputation and opted for no chemo since they knew it usually spread faster in younger dogs. No treatments besides amputation, and that dog lived for 8 more years. Other dogs opt for chemo and only stay in visible form for a couple months. The point is, every dog will battle their cancer differently, so the most important thing is to remain positive and make decisions that you think are best. As long as Max is happy, there's nothing more you can ask for 🙂 Happy for one day will result in an entire lifetime of smiling memories 🙂 Best of luck!!!!!
<3 Laura and Jackers
p.s. jack just turned 6 last monday. he went through 4 rounds of adriamycin (could not afford all 6 rounds) and will celebrate his 11 month ampuversary next week.
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