My dog, Jack, is only 5, so we chose to do chemotherapy since if it did work, he could still crank out a couple good years or even more.  However, I do feed him holistic Blue Buffalo salmon food which is high protein, has fruits and vegetables, and is full of omegas.  I also give him k-9 immunity, transfer factor, and have him on astragalus extract, pau d'arco, and flax seed oil.  Once mets show up our Oncologist plans to switch to Carboplatin (we're on adriamycin now) and I plan to give Jack shark cartilage which may help reduce the blood vessels in tumors. 

I figure, supplements can't hurt (but be sure to check with your doctor as some herbs can have reactions with certain medicines)!  Metronomics seems really promising, but for some reason our oncologist doesn't recommend it (something about toxicity levels in the kidney??).  Our oncologist's opinion matters greatly as she is the expert, but at the end of the day, you have to do what you think is right so you don't regret your decisions or wish you had done something different. 

We fall more into the camp with Pam and Tazzie. Cherry's chemotherapy started literally hours after the amputation, a total of 4 treatment of carboplatin 3 weeks apart, but did have complications. Cherry lost all appetite during the treatments and I had to stuff nearly every morsel of food during the treatments. There was a desire by the oncologist to reduce the dose to help the appetite problem but since small reductions in the dose result in large reductions in the effectiveness, I resisted with all my strength. This clearly was the correct choice for us. As the treatments and examinations continued other issues arose regarding potential tumors in the kidneys and para-thyroid. In both cases the treatment was the chemotherapy that we were already doing so we did not have additional exploratory surgery or biopsys to confirm the potential diagnosis. We are less that a week from our nine month ampuversary and things could not be better. The appetite is very good (not excellent), the spirit and activity levels are excellent. I have not started additional supliments yet because of the tenious appetite problem but probably will soon.

Good Luck,

Bob & Cherry

And, there are a few of us for whom chemo wasn't an option because of the cost.  I'm there, but I lean toward a holistic diet and supplements program anyway.  That's how I take care of myself.

Since the last discussion, I've switched Cemil to Nature's Variety Instinct (grain-free ) Rabbit, because it seems to be less warm than chicken or beef. I learned that here!  And he gets vegetables and a handfull of supplements with each meal, a spoonful of probiotic powder, and a dose of Hoxsey formula.

I asked Dr Williams about artemisinin and now I have more things to consider.  I think she was right, though, with the "bottom line":  There is no Silver Bullet.  So (in answer to the original question), I relied on her advice and did a lot of research myself and came up with a program that suits us.