Dog Fancy Cancer Article/Tika Bladder?

Just read an article in the Dec '02 Dog Fancy magazine about recent innovations in treatments of cancer for dogs. Not clear there's anything there of use for Remington. But they did identify "five common canine cancers": lymphoma, osteosarcoma, mammary cancer, skin cancer, and hemangiosarcoma--which Remington has on his heart and which was just diagnosed in another friend's dog on her spleen:

"With this aggressive cancer of the blood vessels, tumors commonly appear on the spleen, liver, heart muscle, and skin. German Shepherd Dogs are particularly susceptible [my theory has long been that Rem is part GSD]. Because of this cancer's tendency to spread, prognosis is usually poor."

Not encouraging, but then the vets weren't encouraging, either.

We went to another park today and Rem ran around and had too much fun--took off over a small hill and didn't come back. As usual, after I started to panic, wading through mud along a streambed with the other dogs on short leashes so I didn't have to pay attention to them, calling him constantly, he reappeared casually with the "I'm right here, I don't know what you're yelling about." He's so good so much of the time, and then every once in a blue moon pulls this. But he sure had fun up til then (and probably during those 5 minutes or so, too--).

Took Tika in to the vet today--3rd time (previously May & July) for what looks like bladder infection. Peeing drags on forever with little dribbles and drabs, like she's straining to finish; boy dogs especially think she smells fascinating-- Even after keeping her in the house for 3 hours before the vet, there wasn't enough in her bladder to get a sample. They decided to do an x-ray, because one concern has been that she might have some sort of blockage. Nothing showed on the one x-ray they managed to get. They took a blood sample, too. But becuase I *think* she showed fewer symptoms the last 2 times after antibiotic treatment, they gave me 10 days of antibiotics again, and said that if the symptoms improve again, we'll do as much as a month's worth to try to really knock it out.

This is a little scary, too, since *another* friend's agility dog is in renal failure, apparently from an incompletely diagnosed and/or cured bladder infection when she was a young dog. Argh.

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