My name is Kelly MacDougal and I wanted to share the story of my little pug Tid Bit. We adopted her and her two daughters as adults. We were told that she was about eight but when our vet saw her he said that she had to be at least ten. It didn't matter to us, we loved her. We had a few scares with her over the years including totally debilitating arthritis, a melanoma in her eye, degenerative irises, and terrible fights with her daughter that we couldn't control. All of those faded away in 2004.
Tid Bit had a bad habit of chewing plastic things so when we saw blood in her stool we figured it was bits of that making their way through her system. We treated her with steroids and antibiotics. After repeated incidents of these we realized that something more was at work. Our vet, wonderful as she is, did not know what it was and sent us to a specialist. The specialist gave us terrible news, she had rectal carcinoma. It is a fairly aggressive form of cancer.
At this point she had been showing symptoms off and on for seven months. The steroid treatment would temporarily shrink her tumour so they had been helping to hide it. Because of her advanced age, breed complications and location of the tumour she was an extremely poor candidate for conventional treatments. We also did not know if there where other tumours due to spreading of the cancer. We could have done tests, but the prediction with even the one tumour was three to six months but most likely only three so we didn't see paying for them.
We were devastated. I refused to give up. I believe in alternative and complimentary treatments. So I began to systematically search out and contact every homeopathic, naturopathic and holistic vet within two hundred miles. No one and I mean absolutely no one would return a call or an e-mail even if just to tell me to get lost. I was at the end of my rope. I finally contacted a friend who had a sick pug. She had been told to put him to sleep because he was untreatable. But my friend had found an herbalist and his treatments did wonders for her pug who lived for several more years until old age crept up on him. I begged her for her contact information on this wonderful man, and this is how I found Robert McDowell and company.
I wrote and told him of our plight. He and his wonderful helpers created a formula for Tid Bit. For the first year and a half of the treatment her tumour didn't grow. We saw her imminent death around every turn. We have had many people tell us how herbal medicines are all make believe and placebo effect. My pug didn't know she was taking anything. Even so her tumour failed to progress for a long time and when it did it progressed far slower than normal.
We finally had to escort Tid Bit to the Rainbow Bridge on September 18, 2006. That is almost three full years after her first signs and a two and half years after we were told she had three months at best. I know that this wonderful gift of extra time with her was due to the treatments made for us by Robert. Tid Bit was over seventeen years old - an amazing lifespan for any dog let alone one with aggressive cancer.
I can not thank everyone enough for their help and support over the last few years. If they didn't live on the other side of the world I would go in person and give everyone of them a hug. Yes, that's right the other side of the world. I live in Waterloo, New York and had to go so far to find someone who could help. It was worth it.
