August 7th, 2009:   It started with a lovely walk with our doggy friends and some nice snacking on grass (for the dogs). Ollie maybe snacked on too much grass because he then vomited in the car and continued to cough for the next day. We got him into the vet to have it looked at. "Sounds like there is a piece of grass stuck in his throat. We'll have to put him under to get it out. Why not have this little bump biopsied while we are at it?" Oh and his nails and anal glands please. I'm sure he would appreciate being unconscious for these procedures.

You guessed it, that little nipple-like bump on my healthy 3.5 year old mini-mutt was a TUMOR. Scary word. Scary stuff cancer. We all fear it.

That sent me into a flurry of researching and vet visits, indecision and confusion. I so want to make "the right" decision, but we can never be sure can we? These were my options as they became clearer over time

1. Surgically remove the tumor with moderate margins of 1 cm (it is better to have 2-3 cms, but Ollie's tumor is on his front leg and there is not enough skin to take more.)
2. Treat with medication to shrink or possibly eradicate the tumor and re-evaluate for surgery.

My oncologist, Dr. Sabhlok recommended that we go with chemotherapy first using Prednisone, Leukeran, Pepcid and Benydrl. She said that there was a 50% chance of the tumor disappearing and that the drugs have little to no side effects at the dosages we will be using. My regular vet wanted to try some alternative medicine first so we tried chinese herbs and homeopathy when I finally decided to get moving with the chemotherapy.

I have been measuring the tumor weekly and it has not changed. It remains 6-7mm. It has been on his leg for more than a year and when I initially asked a vet about it I was told that it was nothing to worry about. It has grown only a small amount since we first discovered it. The oncologist feels it is probably a grade 1 (mild) tumor which is great news. The bad news is that there is a high percentage of getting more of these things and the new ones can be more nasty (or not!).

My last dog, Gigo died early at the age of 5 due to an auto-immune disorder caused by ehrlichia and I got to feeling that maybe it's me. Maybe I have trouble raising dogs past middle age. Gee, I thought I was doing all the right things. Hec, I work harder at it than most people I know. Maybe I should be feeding him junk and ignoring him all day. Maybe that's the trick! I see dogs living to their teens like that with people who hardly notice them...

My Ollie is so precious to me. We start him on the prednisone tonight and I hope it is not too difficult for him. We will retire him from agility in the meantime but have lots of fun otherwise and he will get extra snuggles and kisses.

Click here for an update! Thanks for reading. I'll leave you with a picture of my little guy doing agility and loving it:

Jess Rollins, Owner
Pet Expertise.com