My beloved pooch was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma on Monday. The vet said without treatment, he had only 4-6 weeks to live. With chemo, he has a 50% chance of living another year and 20% chance of living 2 years or more. Allegedly, chemo doesn’t have the same deleterious effects on dogs as it does on humans. Losing him in a month was not option so he had his first treatment on Monday and is also getting steriods. His lymph nodes have shrunken substantially already and he is his usual ornery self.
I’m just wondering if any of you have had experience with dog chemo and what the outcome was. Any vets out there are welcome to chime in with advice, etc.
I have no experience but I just want to say good luck to you and your dog. I just lost my dog to cancer (no chemo - I didn’t know she had cancer) and our last months together were priceless. You’re really great for putting in the time and money to help him go on
I think I’ve said it before, but veterinary chemotherapy is less aggressive than human chemotherapy. Also keep in mind that new treatments, drugs, and regimes are continually being developed and put on trial. Your dog is not likely to lose its hair, but there will be a time after some drugs were it would be very susceptible to infections. Your veterinarian will give you more information as to when and for how long keep your dog more confined or look after it more to prevent such things.
While I personally haven’t had a dog in chemo, I have seen many undergoing therapy. They do not look or act depressed, if any, the owners suffer it more than the animals. They have no idea of the severity of their problems, they just feel bad. Treat it, and they become better. And many animals seem to tolerate the regime pretty well.
Thanks, KarlGrenze. His second treatment is on Monday so we’ll see how it goes. It’s hard to believe he has a fatal disease as he’s acting so normal and happy. Hopefully, it will stay that way.
You may want to consider feeding your dog more while he still has his appetite. If he feels nauseous later, he may lose his appetite and the extra fat would be beneficial. I hope everything works out.
Do some research on what diet helps fight the lymphoma. Cancers feed on certain carbohydrates, so you may want to switch to foods which are lower in those carbohydrates and higher in proteins and fats to slow the growth of the cancer. Specialty pet stores will usually have a selection of better dog foods for you to choose from. You can also make the dog food yourself, but you have to be sure you are giving your dog the right nutritional variety.
If you do switch foods, do it slowly or else it will cause intestinal distress.
To repeat, chemo treatments in animals are different than in humans. They’re usually less aggressive than humans, for once. Also, animals handle the drugs differently than humans.
From owners who have had animals in chemo, even as a palliative treatment (no hope of cure, but to improve animal well-being for a while), they seem overall pleased with it. They liked the extra time with their pets, and the pets themselves did good with the regimes (until stupid cancer got the best of them).
I’ve had chemo. It was not the most or least pleasant thing I’ve ever been through but I AM still alive, so not everyone has the same experience as you.
Our greyhound had chemotherapy for osteosarcoma - 5 carboplatin treatments a month apart. He tolerated it quite well, never lost his appetite or anything. As the vet explained it to me, the goal of chemotherapy in pets is to induce a remission, rather than effect a cure like it usually is done in people, so it’s less aggressive and therefore tends to be better tolerated.
If you can achieve a year or two of remission, that’s a long time in a dog’s life. I have a friend who treated her greyhound for lymphoma and she lived another couple of years, with a good quality of life. It allowed her to live a normal lifespan for a greyhound - she was about 12 or 13 when she finally did pass.
This is important to keep in mind. When talking about something else, people mention and seem to understand that a year in a dog’s life is much more than in a human. It varies (by breed/size/age), between 5-10 years human years equivalency.
Yet when told about animal chemotherapy and the amount of money for a couple of years of very good odds of remission, some people turn around and say that’s too little time. Well, for a human, it’d be the equivalent of a 60-80 year old getting 5-10 more years of life, relatively in good quality. And most people would think that as something awesome.
Also, remission does not mean immediate death. There are various protocols, and there is a possibility of trying again with some other treatment if the cancer comes back.
Missy the Malamute went through chemo twice. The first time her remission was quite long – in fact, the vet felt she could declare Missy cancer free. It returned with a vengeance. The second remission was shorter, and again Missy was declared cancer free. We had her put down when other complications not related to the cancer emerged.
Corgi with hemangiosarcoma – a very aggressive cancer in dogs. After a false start with a worthless vet (misdiagnosis, no biopsy, really stupid guy I am still angry at after eight years) we worked with an excellent oncologist who gave our dog nearly another year of life (as compared to a prognosis of weeks). He probably had the chemo five or so times – whenever the tumor started to grow again – as it was on his spine it was inoperable.
As she told us, if it works, it will work really well, until it doesn’t. Then it’s over. Our dog would be sick and weak for a few days after the chemo treatment and then he’d regain his energy and appetite and the tumor would visibly and rapidly decrease. The first time it went down to nothing, like magic. The next times, not quite so magic or complete, but very reasonable. His quality of life was almost normal.
The last treatment, he recovered from the effects of the chemo but the tumor didn’t get much better, and his x rays showed the cancer had spread to other organs including his lungs, and he was unable to breathe well. Once he started going downhill he went very quickly.
The oncologist told us that he was unusually responsive to the chemo and did quite a bit better than average for the type of cancer, its location, and how late it was diagnosed.
Every dog and every cancer is different, but I hope this helps a little.
A friend of mine just finished a course of chemo with her cat. Kitty was pretty weak throughout the treatment and they had to basically hand feed her a few times a day in the first couple days after each treatment in order to keep her weight up but she’s come through like a champ.
<bump> Thanks everyone. I just wanted to give an update. Ramush has had three chemo treatments and is in remission. He needs to continue the chemo course but he’s been doing great. His lymph nodes are down to normal size and he’s had virtually no side effects from the chemo. He didn’t have much of an appetite after the third treatment but the next day he was back to normal. The vet “couldn’t be happier” at how he’s responded and I’m thrilled to get as much time with him as I can as long as he’s happy and healthy.
