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Pet Article
PETS AND CANCER
Choosing among the options when your pet has cancer is never easy, but it is important to
know that there are options to chose from. Surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, holistic
approaches, and euthanasia are some of the options owners have for their pets. Where one
owner may decide to treat, another might say 'I don't want to put my dog through that,' and
another may not have the money to treat. There are no right or wrong answers.
Many pet owners are initially very reluctant to do an amputation, but often that is because they
are uninformed. Cancerous legs for example, can be a chronic source of pain, sometimes causing
dogs to drag or gnaw at the leg. Although there is a risk of hemorrhage, amputations are
routine surgeries under the hand of experienced surgeons. When a front limb is removed from a
dog, the entire leg is removed, toes to scapula. In the back limb, the bone is cut at the top
of the femur or take the femur's head out of the hip joint's socket. The procedure in the back
limb will depend on where the tumor is on the leg.
After surgery has been performed, the dogs are walking the next day 90 percent of the time,
some dogs need to get outside and learn that life is worth living again. Having to make the
choice of removing your dogs limb is not easy for any pet owner, when the choice to remove the
limb has been made, the pet owner then needs to understand that their beloved dog is not going
to look as they did before. To some pet owners this can comes as quite a shock, seeing their
dog with only three legs, but if they have spoken with their veterinarian before hand and
understood that there will be brusing and swelling to start with, the sight of the stitches
and the size of the incision made can reduce many pet owners to shaking wrecks. A lot of pet
owners questions themselves after the event and ask if they did the right thing. The question
whether they have been fair to the animal.
These feelings are quite normal and usually when the dog begins his recovery and starts to walk
and run again, you realise that your gave your dog a second chance, you got rid of his pain, you
can see him having a good time again and hopefully these are all the signs you will need to know
that you made the right decision.
Of course taking the decision to amputate your pets limb is not the right decision for every
dog owner, in some cases, if the dog is older, it may be kinder to consider euthanisia.
Every case must be taken on its own merit and of course there is a monetary issue to consider,
not all owners can afford the cost of this kind of treatment. It also has to depend upon
whether you are able to take care of your animal after treatment.
In some cases, amputations can't stop the spread of cancer. For more information about cancer
treatments, talk to your local veterinarian.
Mark Woodcock
1 Flea Control
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