Chinook came to live with us when he was 11months of age. He is a Pyrenean Mountain Dog. The breeder was unable to sell him as he had an overshot jaw and as we already had one of his litter sisters and lived on acreage we were happy to give him a home.
His diet before he came to us had been dry food only. We immediately changed him to a raw food diet with lots of meaty bones.
In January (he was 18months of age) we noticed he was lame and had a sore on his front right leg we went to the vet who took an X-ray and was shocked to discover in such a young dog Osteocarcoma.
Our vet told us that we could have amputation and chemotherapy but even with this treatment that the prognosis was at best 12 months.
We decided we would go to the oncologist and proceed with this treatment to try and give him the best chance of survival.
We also started him on Maritime Pine Extract and Osteocarcoma support mix and Chemotherapy support mix and also added Omega oils with Vit E along with a number of other vitamins and herbs.
We were surprised that Chinook was up and walking around the day after the surgery even though he was a large breed .
Chinook was due to have top up Chemo in October and we returned to discuss this with the oncologist we had an X-ray taken of his lungs to see if there were any secondaries and the oncologist pointed out on the Xray that he felt that there indeed was a secondary and advised if we did not proceed with the top up chemo that Chinook had about 3 months to live.
We discovered later that Carboplatin (which is the Chemo used to treat Chinook) can cause a fungus residue in the lung so this may have been the cause of the shadow on the X-ray and not a secondary tumour.
We felt that we did not want Chinook to have anymore Chemo and wanted to try immune modulation therapy (k9 Immunity and K9 Transfer factor) which we had been researching. We believe that cancer occurs due to a breakdown in the immune system so we started the process to import it from the US we were not giving up that easily even though the research people at Aloha Medicinals told us it was a difficult case Osteocarcoma is very aggressive particularly in such a young dog and he was already 10 months since diagnosis. They were impressed with his RAW food diet and also that we had been using Maritime Pine Extract.
Chinook now has Maritime Pine Extract, K9 Immunity and K9 Transfer factor, omega oils daily, raw food diet only with lots of meaty bones which we noticed he seems to crave maybe something in the cartlidge in the bones that he knows his body needs.
So here we are August and Chinook is doing well and happily getting around on 3 legs chasing foxes away and doing a superb job as guardian breeds do in protecting our goats and geese and I think it is important that a dog have a purpose in life to help to remain well.We give him lots of love and never treat him as a dog who has cancer.
He never stops to think he is missing a leg he just gets on with life that is the wonderful thing about dogs.We have 7 dogs and Chinook is the head of the pack and of course we are the ultimate pack leaders. Never be too concerned that a dog with 3 legs cannot have a fulfilling life - I can assure you Chinook does!
We hope this may be of help to others with dogs suffering from cancer.
The photos are Chinook and his sister Lilou taken in April when he was undergoing treatment and then the one on his own taken in March.
Regards
Sharryn Brown
