Dog has cancer, what to do?

My Dobermann Boris was four years old when he was diagnosed with aggressive skin cancer. The proposed treatment was major surgery & four sessions of carboplatin {chemotherapy} which wouldn't be gruelling for him {canine chemotherapy does not make the hair fall out & rarely has such severe side effects that the dog cannot have the treatment}

The average survival time was 6 ~ 12 months of good health, so I opted for treatment.....with treatment he lived an additional 3.5 years {& he lived life to the full).

I appreciated every extra day that the treatment afforded & would not hesitate to opt for treatment again, *if* it was in my dog's best interest.

Whatever decision you make, I'm sure you are guided by what is in your dogs best interest. Treatment isn't always the best option for a dog diagnosed with cancer, but if you can prolong life in a way that's in the dog's best interest, as was the case with Boris, it can be very rewarding.

Best wishes to you & your dog.

You didn't say how old the dog is but assuming the dog is not extremely old I would have the surgery and leave it after that.

The surgery is a one time treatment from which you can expect her to recover to the quality of life that she is currently experiencing. Stage 1 is still very treatable and simply removing the entire lump can fix it. Even if they don't get it all, it can extend the life of the dog and the quality of life a good bit.

Chemo and other medical treatments, on the other hand, drastically reduce the quality of life with limited effectiveness.

The distinction I make is that with the surgery, you are not reducing the quality of life at the very least. I consider it a one time thing because repeated surgeries are hard on them and if they can't get it all the first time, the expectation that they will be successful the second time is greatly reduced.

I've done this with two of my dogs. Both did just fine. The first one eventually developed other tumors but it was much later and she survived to an age that was expected for the breed. The second has had no signs of any more tumors and is still going strong 2 years after the procedure. It may reoccur at some point, but at her age it's unlikely that it'll be the cause of her death.

Anyway, I would do it again and not look back but that's as far as I would treat it. I want them to have as good a quality of life as possible and live as long as possible but I'm unwilling to sacrifice the former for the latter. $800 isn't chump change but for a dog that's not extremely old the chances are good that it will extend their life with no extended loss of quality of life.

Best of luck.

That's a hard one to answer. If it were my dog, I would do as much research as possible regarding treatment success. I would also consider the age of the dog. The older the dog the harder surgery and treatment will be plus I would have to take into consideration the extent of the surgery and whether or not it would be fair to put the dog through it. Have lost two giant breed dogs to bone cancer. After much research decided to not treat cause it would only extend life less than two years, would have been extremely traumatic to the dogs, and they were both about eight which is old for giant. Just kept them comfortable until they let me know it was time to let go. Good luck.

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Dog has cancer, what to do?

My moms dog has a lump in her armpit. Took her to the vet Monday and they had the results in only a day. It's stage 1 cancer. Removal is roughly $800 though. I'm not sure if they'll get it all and she'll be fine, or not. And either do they until they do it. And chemo is very...

Oh I am so sorry. I hope your dog can take the cancer out with surgery and it never comes back.

Can you answer mine? http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AvXZB... And this one? http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=200906...