First of all, congratulations on blowing away the statistics! We love success stories around here!

No one can tell you what the right decision is for YOUR dog.  Only you know what is right for you and Maverick.  The surgery removes the tumor, the main source of the pain & the cancer.  However, there are likely still microscopic cancer cells floating around in his body someplace.  So, hence the chemo.  To kill off all those stupid little cells.  That being said, there are plenty of success stories on here of dogs  & cats who never had even 1 dose of chemo.  And there are just as many stories of pets who had chemo and didn't make it as long as predicted.  Statistics are just that - some do better and some don't.  Of course we all want ours to be the one who blows those numbers right out of the water.  The oncologist can't hold you to anything - if you're not comfortable with the chemo, if you can't afford it, or if Maverick doesn't tolerate it - then you can stop it at any point.  You are not committed to anything.  Some do the chemo because they want to feel that they did everything they could to ensure the best odds.  Some don't do it because they can't afford it, or because their pet just doesn't tolerate it.  Whatever the reason, it's yours to make.

Donna

Way to go, Maverick!

It's a tough call, isn't it? All I can do is share Izzy's story. She is just about 13 now, American Bulldog and has been my lil "hopper" for the past year. She broke her leg in August 2015, though I didn't realize it was broken at first. She limped for a week and got better then started limping again. My sweet girl suffered with a broken front leg for two weeks before I figured it out. We fretted about what to do so it was probably at least another two weeks before she went in for her amputation. Tests confirmed what her vet feared and had already diagnosed - Osteo. 

I was told she had about 4 months if I didn't do chemo, 8 with. We decided against the chemo and she's with me today, just 8 days shy of her 1 year ampuversary. Now, I will admit that in June, we did start palladia for a mast cell tumor on one of her hind feet. She's done beautifully on it but is having knee trouble, so facing another operation. It isn't related to the OSA and the oncologist says that I don't need to worry about her healing from surgery based on her history. Lungs remain clear and, while Palladia has shown some efficacy in treating lung mets, she's never shown any (and we've taken chest films twice in the past year as well as at the time of diagnosis).

You know your baby better than anyone - but my experience with chemo has been "pawsitive". Izzy is still her sweet, silly self and I'm so so glad to still have her around.

Keep us posted!

We're too new to this business for us to contribute to stats.

Milo is an Australian Labradoodle that just turned 10 last week.  He had his front left leg amputated on July 28 (6 weeks ago).  He was accepted into a clinical trial at Tufts and was part of the "control group", which meant he would receive Carboplatin chemo.  He was only the 3rd dog to make it through all the pre-amp tests at Tufts since the trial began in December.  They are picky and want dogs that are likely to survive long enough to get decent results.  To get into the trial he needed clear lungs, liver, spleen, and lymph -- he passed all of those!  He also needed good liver enzymes and energy and a few other things.

Well, two weeks after surgery, they got the full pathology results and he has a very rare form of osteosarcoma (Giant Cell-Rich) which is very aggressive.  It's only been documented in dogs a few times, probably because it is so aggressive that the dogs rarely get to the level of pathology we did.  There was something seen on his scapula which might have been a lesion (scapula was part of amputation), and he was running a fever.  They booted him from the trial.   

So while we had already decided on chemo, getting booted from the trial put us in the position to reconsider.  We had watched Milo respond poorly to the NSAID Metacam, and possibly a bad reaction to Tramadol.  We also saw him starting to get back to his old self with nothing more than improved food, K9 Immunity , and a handful of other things.  We decided that we didn't want to risk him having a bad reaction to chemo -- even if it was just for a few days every few weeks.  With such a rare form of cancer, there's no info on how it reacts to chemo, but likely the same as most osteos.  We decided we'd rather have 1-2 months of a happy, healthy dog than 4 months on a roller coaster.  Those extra months would have been for us, not for him.

Anyway, that's our thought process.  Milo is doing great so far.  He's happy, healthy, active, eating well.  The only down days he has are when he gets tight or sore from his new "hopping" stride.  The stress level in our family is lower than it would have been with chemo.  It's a good balance for us, and we're going to enjoy whatever time we have, and will not look back with the regret of "what if we had tried to chemo...."

Peace,

-Jenifer & Milo