P. Sherwood Posted October 12, 2005 Report Share Posted October 12, 2005 I have just lost my 5-year-old companion Fire to lymphoma. Does anyone have any knowledge of what may have caused it? His breeder has never had a case of cancer. He was in excellent condition. From time of diagnosis to the day I had to put him down was just 2 months. Before I get another dog, I'd like to know more about this ghastly disease. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claire Owen Posted October 12, 2005 Report Share Posted October 12, 2005 I'm afraid I dont know anything about the condition. I just wanted to say how sorry I am, I can only imagine what you're feeling right now. You could try this website, not sure how much info it'll have on it though! http://www.vetinfo.com/dogindex.html Claire x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rave Posted October 12, 2005 Report Share Posted October 12, 2005 Cancer is very common in dogs unfortunately. There is often no rhyme or reason to how and why it attacks. Sorry for your loss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2 Devils Posted October 12, 2005 Report Share Posted October 12, 2005 Sorry for your loss... What kind of lymphoma? I lost a bc/mix a little over a year ago that was 4 yrs old to GI Tract Lymphoma. Cancer is very common unfortunately. There is no scientific reasoning behind it. Some think that vaccinations could be a cause and that some additives in the dog food can cause cancer. Some think these things only increase the chances. Some breeds are more prone to cancer like the golden retriever, from what I have been told. Just like with people, many times there is not an answer to why... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebecca, Irena Farm Posted October 12, 2005 Report Share Posted October 12, 2005 I'll add too, don't let anyone tell you it was something you fed or vaccinations or whatever. We're all deluged with carcinogenic agents every day and it's just a roll of the dice with something as crazy as cancer. My sympathies for your loss - cancer stinks. But don't think twice about bringing another dog into your life - there's risk in everything we do, but I think the joy of living with dogs is worth the risk. Was it Kipling who talked about giving your heart to a dog to tear? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Debbie Crowder-BaaramuLuke Posted October 12, 2005 Report Share Posted October 12, 2005 My heart goes out to you for losing your companion Fire. Lymphoma is fast and aggressive and strikes dogs of all ages. We just put down one today who was diagnosed in August, she was six, a mixed breed, never really had any problems before this. It is horrible. I agree, do NOT beat yourself up thinking it was food, vaccines, even breeding, although it's true certain breeds have more cancers than others. Do not hesitate to get another dog for fear it will happen again. It will give you comfort to educate yourself more, but once you have all the facts you can get, it's little consolation that for whatever the Big Plan was, he's gone, and you are heartbroken. My thoughts and prayers are with you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK dog doc Posted October 12, 2005 Report Share Posted October 12, 2005 I'm sorry to hear about your loss. I lost my beloved Buddy-dog to intestinal LSA about 16 mounths ago. In dogs, LSA is a treatable, but not curable, disease. Some tumors are more aggressive than others, and some sites of tumor occurance do better than others. The average survival from time of diagnosis of LSA to time of death, with no treatment given, is 30 days. If only prednisone is given, that stretches to 60 days. If agressive chemo is given, you have an 80% chance of a remission, which averages 8 months on the first go-around. That means 20% will NOT go into remission. Of the 80% that DO respond, 80% again of those can get a second remission, which averages half the duration of the first one. Cancer, when all types are considered together, is the leading cause of death in older dogs. However, it is the most curable chronic disease. You can't cure all kinds of cancer (yet, anyway), but you can surely cure some of them. If you have cardiac failure or kidney failure, we're not going to cure those short of a transplant. But cancer we have a shot at. So, horrible and scary as it is to contemplate, I hope you won't let it scare you into not having another dog. There ARE breeds that appear more tumor-prone than average, and that can be regional within a breed as well. I'm inclined to think this in part reflects popularity of a breed both in numbers (if 90% of all your patients are Goldens and the other 10% are "everything else", then it stands to reason that 90% of your cancer patients are going to be Goldens, too), and possibly in careless breeding practices (a popular breed may be over-bred by careless, uninformed, or mercenary people, so that less-healthy animals are over-represented in the gene pool.) That said, the general theory about cancer (at least when I was in school) is that it is a multi-factorial disease, in that you have to have a mistake made in cell maturation AND a failure of the immune system in controlling and destroying the abnormal cells. The error in maturation may be driven by inborn genetic tendency, external factors (such as UV light in the case of skin cancer, for example), a simple bad-luck mistake in cell division, or a combination. The failure of the immune system to recognize and control the abnormal cells may be similar (inborn genetics, bad luck mistake or external factors that suppress immune function), but there may also be more subtle factors at play - as in how well the cells mimic "normal", hormones or hormone-like substances produced by the tumor, etc. You did not cause your dog's cancer. If your breeder has been breeding a long time and has never had a lymphoma pop up before, it may just be a random bad event (although not every breeder knows what happened to every puppy they produce.) It is bitterly hard to lose a young dog to an incurable disease, and you have my sympathies, as well as those of a great many of those here on the boards. I find it's better to wait to get another dog until you're ready to bond with one (and that timing varies for everyone, from being "right away" to months or even years down the road) - but it sounds like Fire was very important to you, and to me it seems that that kind of heart is meant to have another dog. For me, at least, it would be a waste of my good heart not to have a dog in my life somewhere; part of me is made to love them, and that part seeks expression. I hate to see a gift go to waste, and to the extent that I have a gift for loving dogs, it should be used. When you're ready, I hope you DO get another dog, and I hope he or she lives a good long life. But for me, at least, win or lose, short life or long, they always have been worth it. I have never looked back at the life of a dog I've loved and thought, "I wish I'd never known that dog, that I'd never loved him (or her), that we'd never run that mountain trail or sat in the rain that one night listening to the cars go by on the road or spent that golden fall afternoon playing in the leaves" - or what have you. Even though I've often wished quite desperately that they could have lived longer, I still treasure every gift they have brought me - and they've brought me many. So if it eases your pain to know you did not cause the cancer, or to know that you are not alone in your shock and sorrow over the passing of a young friend, then please take that knowledge with you from here. And if it's any comfort to know it, medicine has not given up on curing cancer. We're still fighting the good fight. We won't quit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2 Devils Posted October 13, 2005 Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 Like the others said, don't let this keep you from getting another dog. After loosing Charlotte, I had a new puppy within 2 months and he has been a godsend. And actually, he acts very, very much like Charlotte (good and bad). So to us, she is watching over this monster we brought home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P. Sherwood Posted October 13, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2005 To AK Dog Doc--you had me in tears. We tried chemo, but could not get on top of the cancer. He lasted just 6 weeks from diagnosis to euthanasia, with treatment. Clearly, it was well established by the time any external evidence showed up. Too bad there's not some annual screening that would tip us off to bad cells in an early stage. To all of you--thanks for the sympathy and good advice. One does try to figure out causes--and feel guilty about not feeding the right food or using the wrong flea repellant or spreading fertilizer on the lawn or... I will have another pup--though he will never be Fire, he will be something nearly as good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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