Dogged Blog

How Long Do Dogs Live?

How long do dogs live? Not long enough.

"After my dogs go," my boss told me this morning, "I'm only going to have pets who outlive me." (Since in addition to his Ridgebacks Sasha and Gus, he has a parrot and four tortoises,  I think he meant that literally.)

He told me this when he called to say I didn't have to work today, even though I didn't work yesterday, either. That was because yesterday, I took my beautiful Raven on her last journey, the one dogs  don't come back from. When they have trouble breathing and stop eating, any idiot knows it's time. Some people might think I'm an idiot to love my dogs the way I do, to have taken this fight as far as I did, but I'm not too much of an idiot to know when I've been beaten.

I don't regret fighting for Raven's life - not the chemo, the Chinese herbs, the experimental inhaled interleukin-2 and IV pamidronate. I just think it was all too late. Helen, her vet, said she had a nasty aggressive osteosarcoma, and it tore through my girl like wildfire. I've never had an animal with cancer before. I know now why so many people call it The Beast, although it seems Raven's cancer was among the most beastly. Despite that, it gives me some comfort knowing I did everything possible, and a few impossible things, too.

I definitely don't regret the amputation. Every day after I brought her home from the surgery was better than the day before. Every day she exceeded my expectations of her recovery. Stairs, hills, even chasing a jackrabbit - my girl had some golden weeks in this unexpectedly cool and foggy summer.

I just didn't know how short our post-amputation honeymoon would be.

I don't regret making Raven part of my life, either, despite the way it ended. I remember picking Raven out of her litter, a sleek black puppy in a sea of grey. I had just had a disappointment when a litter I bred turned out to be one male puppy, and I bought Raven originally expecting to breed her to my dog Doughal when she grew up. It wasn't to be, as she turned out to have severe allergies, and considering osteosarcoma is a genetic disease in Scottish Deerhounds, that was a blessing in disguise. I'd cut my own arm off before I knowingly produced puppies who might put their owners through what I've just gone through. But regret having her in my life? Not hardly.

Because I loved Raven like nothing else, with more fire than the one that burned through her, with more joy and hope and love every morning, when she opened up her eyes and looked at me.

How long do dogs live? They live forever.

And Then There Are the Bad Days

Raven had a very peaceful night, but I should have known something was wrong as she slept all night with her head on my shoulder.

And today started out well, because she came on the walk with us and went further than she's gone in a couple of weeks.

At first I thought she'd just overdone it on the walk and was in pain, but I couldn't get her to eat anything at all, and if you give her pain meds on an empty stomach it makes her very sick. But she really wouldn't eat a thing, not one bite. I forced some Reglan into her (thank heavens the pills are tiny), and some herbal drops for nausea that usually work very well, and about half an hour later was able to get her to eat enough that I could give her the pain meds. Still, she was unhappy and sick all day long.

I have no clue if this is the IL-2 or the disease or something else. I think that not knowing has been the worst thing about this, other than seeing her suffer. My brother and sister-in-law and my beautiful little baby nephew were here today, and fortunately they are big dog lovers so were very wonderful with Raven and my preoccuation with her during their visit.  It made it a little easier on me to give the meds a chance to make her more comfortable.

It is possible that Raven really did overdo it and this is pain, and has nothing to do with the IL-2, but it seems to me that her abdomen has fluid in it and she's just very slightly edematous all over body. I suspect this is the underlying disease or a side effect of the IL-2. If it's the first, it seems to me we are too late with the IL-2, and if it's the second, we can't continue with the IL-2. Both of which leave me with nothing at all up my sleeve.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. She has a vet appointment on Wednesday but of course, if she's still uncomfortable tomorrow we'll go right in. Job? What job?

Getting the Hang of It

I finally figured out a few things about taking care of Raven.

One of them is that she has good days and bad days. Each bad day doesn't mean we're at the end, and each good day doesn't mean we've turned the corner. Yesterday was a good day, in fact, a magically good day. Today seems to be a good day, too, as while her feet are still swollen, she came halfway on the walk with us this morning.

I am working on having some kind of serene baseline of my own that doesn't get disrupted with every good and bad day that Raven has. I won't say it's been a stunning success, as my poor sister-in-law found out when she asked me, in all innocence, how Raven is doing and I burst into hysterical sobbing. And that was yesterday, on a GOOD day! But I'm trying.

I've also pledged to not neglect the other dogs while caring for Raven. Raven doesn't need and doesn't like me hovering over her, and the other dogs still need my attention, need to enjoy this early fall we're having here, to be taken out to run and down to the creek to splash around. And I need it, too.

Raven's swollen feet first improved quite a bit after we discontinued the IL-2, but the swelling came back after two days off the treatment. From this  we concluded that most likely it was not an allergic reaction or even a side effect, and is probably related to the lung tumors disrupting her circulatory system. The only real hope is to shrink the tumors, so yesterday I started the IL-2 again. Other than it irritating the heck out of her eyes - I've sealed up the edges of the mask to the best of my ability but some is obviously leaking out - she is tolerating it well this time. Well, she's not necessarily tolerating it any better than before, it's more that I now understand that this IS powerful medicine, it's NOT benign, and that even though it makes her feel like crap it might still be helping her.

I came to this conclusion after talking to a number of people who had gone through painful and distressing cancer treatments themselves, who said, "Yes, I wanted to die while I was having chemo. But I didn't die, and now I'm alive, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat." The catch,  of course, is that we don't know if we'll win this bet or not. I might be making Raven feel crappy and not shrinking her tumors at all. But when I look at the results of the small study on IL-2 nebulization on dogs with lung tumors, it seems that all the dogs, even the ones who didn't get a long-term remission, did still get some benefit from it in terms of tumor shrinkage. And if that is what's causing her swollen feet, then this is the best way to fix that.

As to making her feel crappy, she actually doesn't seem to feel all that crappy. She's tired but not depressed, her bloodwork and urinalysis were almost completely normal, she's become a bit finicky about her food but she is eating, and I think if her poor swollen feet didn't hurt so much, this wouldn't be too bad a time for her. And it doesn't appear the swollen feet are from the IL-2. Of course, "appear" is the key word here, because there is a lot we just don't know. This is an experimental therapy without a lot of data or clinical experience to draw on, and dogs don't talk so I can't even ask her what she thinks.

I get several emails every day asking me how Raven is doing, and links to her story are posted pretty frequently to email lists (I can see people clicking in when I look at my Typepad tracking data), so I wanted to let her many friends know what's going on. I do love all my dogs, in fact, I love all dogs, period, but sometimes there's one who just gets to you in a certain way, and she got to me like that a long, long time ago.

Please keep the good thoughts, white light, candles, prayers, and best wishes flowing her way. When it comes to things spiritual, these days I mostly alternate between flat skepticism and desperate superstition, but now and then something  crystal clear and  clean breaks through, that feels an awful lot like  serenity, and if it's coming from you, Raven and I thank you.

What's That Sound?

Raven's feet were all swollen up this morning, and Dr. Hamilton had me stop the nebulization in case it was a side effect or allergic reaction to the IL-2. She wants me to stop for 2-3 days and then see where we are.

Raven doesn't even want to walk, but she is eating and seems happy enough - not HAPPY HAPPY, but not too bad. Over the course of the day the swelling went down about 50 percent, and this afternoon I ran her over to the local vet, who drew blood. I brought a urine sample, too. We'll check on her liver and kidney functions, etc. She's on a lot of meds, who knows what is going on? No fever at least. Hardly any coughing. We'll have the bloodwork and UA results tomorrow morning.

Poor little Raven, it would be just our luck that she'll be allergic to her last ditch miracle drug that cost more than my mortgage payment. We've done four days of a 30 day course of treatment. I could scream. I may scream. That sound is me screaming.

Nothing to Lose

I took Raven into the vet on Tuesday. It turned out her couple of  bad days were the result of a  minor back injury, and she's back to running and playing as if nothing had ever happened. It probably  had nothing to do with the chemo, or at least, not much.

But while she was there they did an x-ray, and the local vet saw something suspicious in her lungs. So we went off to our vet and my friend, Helen Hamilton, who did a complete chest series and confirmed all our worst fears: The chemo has totally failed to control the spread of the cancer and Raven's lungs are full of metastases.

Ten weeks ago her lungs were clear, now she's loaded with mets. For those who don't live in Osteo Hell like we do now, you might not know that this is the worst possible news.  Given the rapid spread, and the absolute lack of accepted treatments for lung mets in osteosarcoma, this is the end. Four to 8 weeks, said Helen. But... she also said she was going to find out if there was anything anywhere we could try, some experimental therapy, some trial, something, anything. She seemed to want it as badly as I did. Almost.

I wasn't hopeful, really, but she took me by surprise when she scared up some information today about a nebulization therapy with interleukin-2, a form of immune stimulant that is nebulized into the lungs. Amazingly, you do this therapy at home.

It's experimental and there's very little data. It seems pretty safe. We have nothing at all to lose.

Medline abstract here. I have a PDF file with the full study plus dosage information; post here or email me if you want me to send it to you.

And no, of course I'm not as calm as I seem. I'm terrified. I cried for two days and couldn't even tell my friends. But I have a happy dog here and I am going to see if I can keep her that way a little longer. Denial, hope, grasping at straws, I have no idea what it is. But it's what I've got.

In the Shadows

I stood in the little herb shop today, wanting to buy some eyebright to make a soothing eye wash for Raven. She had chemo on Wednesday and now has irritated eyes, aches and pains, and seems very sad.

I'm sad too - between harrowing images of human and, yes, animal suffering on CNN and flooding into my email box, and watching Raven descend into her chemotherapeutic depression, knowing that however good my intentions, I'm responsible for subjecting her to it - I'm so sad and lost right now I hardly know how to describe it.

So when they told me they had no eyebright, I just wandered around the shop, looking at what they did have on their well-stocked shelves. Turmeric, I thought - I should buy that, I heard it's good for cancer.  I idly picked up jars of unfamiliar Ayurvedic herbs and familiar Western herbs, looking for something, anything, that would make my dog well.

And then I started to cry. Because there really is nothing in that store, or any other store, that I can buy to beat this.

I got home and she was still where she'd been five hours before. I couldn't lure her off the sofa, but she ate food from my hand. At dinnertime I made her get up, but she only staggered a few steps before sinking onto a dog bed, exhausted.

I know that chemo reactions can be violent and horrible, but after four  treatments so far, this is the first one she's had, and by any standard it's mild. Except mine, because the sadness in her eyes is killing me.

The first time she had chemo was the day she had her stitches out from the amputation. She slept through it, her head in my lap. But every subsequent time she's been less accepting, more distressed. I thought we might be faced with vomiting and diarrhea and some kind of major upheaval of her body that I could point to and say, enough. But instead it's just this sadness, this shadow in her eyes, this weakness and loss of joy.

Today I spent hours adding Hurricane Katrina pet-related stories to the news feed on one of the sites run by the company I work for, Pet Press.net. Some of the stories made me cry like a baby, dogs and cats being crudely euthanized by people trying to spare them drowning and slow starvation. A little dog scratching at the door of the bus taking his owner away. A report from a veterinarian on the scene not able to give more than the most basic care to the animals in need of so much more.

It's not that I don't like people. It's not even that I like dogs more than people. It's that I view the world through a certain kind of filter, the one that cares what happens to the world because it's the world my dogs live in. And I feel so helpless, helpless against all the things that threaten human and animal life. All the things that rip beloved animals from the arms and care of people who cherish them. All the things that implacably smash that powerful force we clinically call the "human-animal bond."

Things like hurricanes. And cancer.

Tonight Raven seems a little better. She ate her dinner, she drank some water, she batted playfully at my head when I knelt down to hug her. I thought I saw some sparkle in her eyes. I gave money again to the Red Cross and to a fund for veterinarians volunteering in the disaster zone. I flushed her eyes with sterile saline and made eggs poached in beef broth for her dinner. I knelt next to her with a water bowl, and she had a drink.

And I cried.

What Missing Leg?

When oncologist Greg Ogilvie DVM talked to me about Raven's osteosarcoma, he told me there are only three things that matter when talking about cancer treatment of animals: Quality of life, quality of life, and quality of life.

I had Raven's left rear leg amputated for one reason only: To control her pain. It's worked brilliantly, and she has needed no further pain medication of any kind. And I was fully prepared to have to limit her activities, protect her from the other young dogs, make allowances for her. My mom and I had talked about different carts we might get to help her get up and down to the creek. HAH!

After about 7 weeks, Raven is trucking around this place like she was born with three legs. She can go up and down to the creek, runs and plays with the other young dogs, goes on the whole "young dog" walk with us twice a day (and still has the energy to chase Kyrie in the dog door at the end).

The other day she came to me while I was working here on my computer (actual work, the kind that pays her obscene vet bills, not this frivolous blogging) and whimpered, a signal we've worked out that shows she needs something. I of course leapt up and went with her, assuming she wanted to be let outside as our laundry room dog door is temporarily closed while we do some work there.

She marched over to the sofa where her brother Rebel was sleeping and looked from me to him and back again, obviously expecting me to cater to her every whim as I'd been doing since she was stricken with cancer in May, and boot him off her chosen nap spot.

I burst out laughing and told her to think again. She was definitely surprised but sheepishly got on the office sofa and made do with that.  Oh, the horror.

I'm becoming very annoying on the various email lists and forums I'm on begging people not to decide against amputation for their dogs. I've read about dogs with hip dysplasia doing well after amputations, about dogs who weigh over 200 pounds doing well, of dogs whose owners and vets swore they couldn't function on three legs who are out in the yard running and playing as their owners report the miracle to the other listmembers. Having seen what I've seen, I can't help being a little pushy about this.  However long it lasts, if what you want is quality of life, this is it.

Do you know the number one way that osteosarcoma kills dogs? It's not the tumor itself. It's not metastases to the lungs. It's not the spread of the cancer to other bones.

It's because their owners put them to sleep because they can't control the pain of the slowly-exploding bone.

Unless your dog already only HAS three legs (and I've heard of a border collie who gets by on two, but even I would draw the line there for a deerhound), odds are that they really will be fine after the amputation. Dr. Ogilvie told me that over 95 percent of his clients who opt for amputation would do it again. How many decisions do we make in our lives with those kind of odds?

Three Legged Dog Blogging

I've been taking Raven, my dog with osteosarcoma who had her left rear leg amputated a month ago, out with the senior dogs for her morning walks, as she's been nervous around the young dogs. Friday morning I stupidly forgot to shut the gate to the potty yard when I took her back in, and went to get the youngsters for THEIR longer and more vigorous walk.

Raven trotted out to join us and, for a couple of minutes, bounced around and played with Rebel and Kyrie. When they started to roughhouse, she came and stood by me, and I put a dog bed from the car down on the ground. She lay next to me but watched them the whole time as they ran, and I could tell she was thinking about it.

She's run a number of times, but alone. That was  the first time she's done anything but freeze when someone tried to play with her.

This morning, I took a chance and we all went out on one big walk together. She ran with Rebel, albeit only for a minute or so. She then came on the entire walk with us, and at the end of it - raced with Kyrie for the dog door.

Veterinary oncologist Dr. Greg Ogilvie asked me to videotape Raven running and playing so he can show it to his patients who think amputating a dog's leg is cruel or impossible for big dogs. As soon as the shaved area on her hip has grown back in a bit more, I'm going to do that, and will post it here as well. But for now, this is a photo my friend Gina Spadafori took of her this weekend in my front garden.

If you have come across this post because you're searching for information on osteosarcoma and amputation in dogs, I hope you won't let your own natural reluctance to have your dog's leg removed stop you from doing what is best for the dog. Before she even had her stitches out, Raven was running and using the stairs. I don't know how our battle with osteosarcoma will turn out, but the amputation part of it has been a huge success.

Three and a Spare

She runs in her sleep.

Raven, I mean, my Scottish Deerhound who had her left rear leg amputated last month after bone cancer had eaten a big hole in it. She runs in her sleep.

Lots of my deerhounds seem to do that: Their closed eyes darting, their legs bunching and releasing, their necks extending and drawing back in. They're dreaming of running after a hare or a deer, or maybe just after one of the other dogs in a play version of the hunt.

When Raven does it, the remainder of her amputated leg still moves with the other one, draws up and extends in a dreaming double-suspension gallop. Her eyes dart and her neck pumps and when I put my hand on her side, her heart is racing. The chase is on and she's in it, coursing with the other hounds after a dream deer.

I sat on the bed next to her this morning at around sunrise, my knees drawn up to my chest and my feet tucked under the edge of my quilt. She was having a great run and once or twice she gave a muffled little bark of excitement. Since deerhounds run silent and only vocalize when they've caught their prey, I have to guess her hunt was a success.

And then she woke up.

Every day except when she was at her sickest after surgery, Raven has greeted me and the morning with joy. Her eyes light up, her tail thumps, and she gives me a slurpy kiss good morning. She waits until I've cleared the other dogs out of the room to get up now, though, as she's scared to jump off the bed and and catch her balance when they're around. Then she sails off and gallops outside to potty, one front leg moved back to form a stable tripod while she pees. Then I let my two oldest dogs out the gate and the three of us walk down to the edge of my property and back, Raven making better time and covering more ground than my four-legged senior citizen, Rosie. Sometimes she hops up the fairly steep hill next to the drive, sometimes she just looks at it appraisingly and decides against it.

Now and then, for a change of scene,  I shut the young dogs up in the house and let Raven into the meadow off my deck, and she races around on her three legs, in a funny little hitching gallop that would still outpace any dog but another sighthound.

She may never run with the pack again, never scare up a jackrabbit and fly after it like the wind, never put four legs to the ground and then into the air in the flying gait that's the hallmark and definition of her breed. That wasn't something that she lost because I had her leg amputated, as some people either ignorant or unkind, or perhaps both, told me when I made the decision. Cancer took that away from her, not the surgeon and not me. As the oncologist told me at the time, dogs are born with "three legs and a spare."

Will Raven be one of the 15 percent of dogs with osteosarcoma who has amputation and chemo and never has a recurrence of their cancer? Or maybe one of the 30 percent who makes it to two years? Those aren't great odds, but they aren't zero.  Obviously we're going for the 15 percent. Maybe all we'll get is two years or a year, or even a few months, of dreaming about the hunt and hitch-galloping around the meadow, of watching her flying after a deer in her sleep. Maybe she'll overcome her nervousness and fear and play with the young dogs again. Maybe, just maybe,  she'll fly again.

But I know one thing: Dead dogs don't play, or run, or hitch-gallop, or smell at the ground, or have their eyes light up in the morning.

They don't even dream.

The Lesson Plan

In Raven's page on my website, I talk about all the things I have  learned from her. And I know that going through this battle against osteosarcoma will teach me much more. But I want to clarify one thing. I don't have the idea there is a Great Lesson Master in the Sky,  some sort of cosmic and sadistic school principal devising a Lesson Plan for Christie. Raven's cancer has no pre-ordained purpose, even though it will in fact end up serving  one. A young, healthy dog didn't lose her leg and risk dying of a horrible disease just to teach me something.

Raven got osteosarcoma because her parents gave her two copies of a gene for osteosarcoma. There may or may  not have been some environmental influences, such as the fact that she was on a deficient diet for 90 days while she was still growing (she was on an allergy elimination diet) or perhaps small micro-fractures of the bone during her puppyhood, but without that underlying genetic susceptibility, this wouldn't have become bone cancer.

Of course we learn from experiences.  But Raven did not come into this world so I could learn something. She came into this world to live, and the fact that I will learn things from her life does not mean those lessons were her reason for being here, and certainly not the reason she got this disease.