I have written previously about the sad fact that poodles (and boxers, and some other breeds) are prone to developing cancer. My own family has lost more than one beloved pet to this insidious disease. Most experts believe cancer is triggered primarily by environmental causes in both humans and their pets, though certain genetic weaknesses make it easier to trigger.

Alas, a friend this past week discovered that his beloved dog has lymphoma, a systemic cancer. He is currently out of work (as are millions of others with millions more to come in the current economic crisis), was devastated that he simply cannot afford the expensive chemotherapy his vet suggested. Feeling very depressed about losing his sweet dog in addition to all the other troubles his struggling family is facing, he felt entirely helpless and more than a little bit like a total failure.

So I wrote him a nice little email about my experience with canine cancer, and how that very expensive chemotherapy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Not only does it not gain the dog any arguably high quality time on the planet, it causes many peripheral problems too. Our dear Bob’s beautiful poodle hair fell out, he suddenly gained so much weight he could hardly walk, and time for “The Shot” came right on schedule anyway, he didn’t gain a single day. Even though it cost us $1500 way back in the 1990s, and those costs have doubled or tripled in the years since.

When our sweet Beau was diagnosed with cancer, we chose not to go the chemo route because we already knew it wasn’t worth the cost. So I told my friend about some herbal treatments that some vets recommend either as systemic support during the course of the disease or to use in conjunction with chemo to offset the gnarly side-effects. These are mostly anti-oxidants, general health supports, and may include energy and/or appetite stimulants. These really can help your dog feel better day to day, have more energy, avoid suffering rapid decline, and in conjunction with reasonable pain relief can at least make your dog’s last months much more comfortable.

Links below go to various pet-med and veterinary sites that offer formulations for cancer support and pain relief that will not break your budget. It is actually a good thing to feel that you’re doing something for your loving companion, while allowing for gentle, focused interaction at the end of a lifetime (the dog’s) spent together.

Links:

Canine Herbal Treatments: Cancer
Foster&Smith: Tramadol [pain relief]
Herbal Medicine as an Alternative Treatment
Integrative Treatment of Cancer in Dogs
All Natural Remedies for Dogs and Cats
Alternative Medicine for Dogs

It might have added three months to his life, though in the end we did have to take him in for “The Shot,” crying all the way. The most awful thing about the chemo was that it not only made poor Bob’s beautiful hair fall out in fistfuls, it also made him gain weight like nobody’s business. Some of that was no doubt the drug effects themselves, but another part of it was that he was voraciously hungry all the time and we just didn’t have the heart to deny him. By the time he died he was at least 20 pounds overweight, which is a very considerable amount for a fine-lined dog such as a poodle.

It reminded me of a friend we had way back in the 1970s, who was sort of short and chunky even though he was a confirmed vegetarian. I figured it was just his particular frame and metabolism, because you’d have to eat a whole lot more carrots, spinach and rice than he ever did to put that much weight on. He had a dog named Fasha, a mostly white beagle-like mutt with serious attitude, who proved the adage that people and their dogs tend to look alike. Fasha was as chunky as our friend, but actually did eat enough to account for it.

I’ve been reading in the news about the worsening obesity crisis in America, where the ‘average’ person weighs nearly twice what most people in the rest of the world weigh. Just another symptom of our fondness for conspicuous consumption, as well as the shift in our food supply toward ever more processed foods that contain excessive amounts of high fructose corn syrup that does nothing so much as pack on the pounds. Our increasingly sedentary lifestyles don’t help, and now even our children are obese because they no longer spend lots of time outdoors playing at running and climbing games. And that’s a symptom of our increasingly estranged neighborhood arrangements and the dangers kids face these days that simply weren’t a big concern when I was growing up.

As we get fatter, so do our dogs and cats. As many as 30% of our dogs are overweight according to vet surveys, and the actual problem on the ground could be worse. Our lack of exercise translates to dogs not getting a lot of exercise either. And just as our extra poundage contributes to all sorts of health problems and early death, that is true for dogs as well (but, interestingly enough, apparently not for fat cats).

Poodle people are generally not too tolerant of fat poodles, as they spend inordinate amounts of time and money buying them the best foods, getting them meticulously groomed at the best salons, and generally showing them off for the gorgeous animals they truly are. A fat poodle isn’t particularly endearing, and you don’t see that many of them. Perhaps poodle people aren’t all that overweight either. Or, I haven’t known any fat poodle people – of the standard-imperial variety, though I have seen some chubby toys and minis.

If our dogs reflect our lifestyles as well as our very selves, perhaps their weight gain should alert owners that some real changes need making. The links below offer good information about the problem and advice from vets and pet food manufacturers on how to help your dogs lose weight and live longer. I’d like to hear some stories about poodle people out there who have dealt with an overweight beauty, and how this helped them become more conscious of their own lifestyle choices as well. Comment away!

Links:

The Overweight Standard Poodle

Overweight Dogs Are A Big Problem

Articles: Weight Loss In Dogs

Pedigree Weight Maintenance

I have previously posted about Bob’s death, his unfortunate demise of systemic cancer when he was only 8 years old. He had by then become so much a part of our family that we tried everything we could afford to try when the vet said his condition could be treated. That meant chemo-for-dogs, and the results weren’t very pretty.

He was diagnosed with cancer just a year after our son had died, and we just couldn’t face another family tragedy – my own father had died of a heart attack just months later, my husband’s father had a heart attack the day of our son’s funeral. We’d had our fill of grief to last some years.

We packed up bob and the rest of the family and headed out to Oklahoma to spend Thanksgiving with my husband’s mother, who had promised to cook her very last turkey if we’d make the trip. How could we refuse? Bob’s chemo had definitely taken a toll by then. His hair had been falling out in clumps, making him look rather mangey, and he was putting on weight like nobody’s business. I’d say that was just the steroids, but his appetite was voracious. Poor guy.

My brother-in-law and his wife and four kids were all there, the four of us plus Bob, and the grandparents. I’d been working all day to prepare all the side dishes, so when the turkey came out of the oven I had set it aside at the far end of the counter to await completion of the rest of the feast. We family members gathered in the big living room to hold hands and give our thanks, and Bob snuck into the kitchen…

By the time Grandma and I got there to put everything into bowls for the buffet, Bob had that turkey on the floor and was finishing off a drumstick, preparing to go for the other one. I was mortified! Grandma’s last turkey dinner, and Bob had ruined it! I prepared all my defenses, feeling very sorry for Bob and not all that sorry for us. My dear mother-in-law, however, surprised me.

She started laughing. I mean, really laughing, out loud. She called the whole family in, bent down to get the turkey away from Bob (who shouldn’t be eating turkey bones, y’know), and gave him a mighty hug with tears rolling down her cheeks. Poor Bob! She loved that dog nearly as much as we did, as he’d assigned himself as Grandma guardian after my father-in-law’s heart attack, never left her side the whole time he was in the hospital and recovering at our house, even slept at the foot of her bed.

She told me her life was now complete, she’d had a turkey eaten by the dog on Thanksgiving! It would be a funny story she’d get great mileage out of forevermore, and not a single member of the family complained that only the breast was left for us to eat. We just washed it off and put it on the table, my hubby carved it like usual, and the kids ate it without a qualm.

We had to put Bob down just a couple of months later, but Grandma still talks very fondly about him and cherishes the story of Bob and her Last Thanksgiving Turkey. Now I roast the turkeys, and she doesn’t have to raise a finger. Grandpa’s gone now, and she doesn’t do much cooking. Yet every Thanksgiving in all the years since, no matter where she’s having dinner, she tells the story and always gets a laugh. You just haven’t lived a full life, she tells people, unless you’ve had your Thanksgiving turkey eaten by the dog at least once!

Three years after what was left of my family moved to our mountain in North Carolina following the tragic death of our son and business partner SkyPup, we lost Uncle Bob the Poodle to systemic cancer. He’d been with us for 9 years as a certified member of our family as well as our family entertainment troupe.

It broke our hearts, even though we still had Kenya, our female black with the improbable registered name of “Kenya Queen Reba Amelia E.” – our Flying Poodle. She was 5 years younger than Bob, purchased from a breeder in Savannah as a mate for Bob (in hopes we could pay for haircuts with occasional puppy litters). We’d wanted to make especially sure their bloodlines were not closely related, having researched the issue of interbreeding and prevalent cancer and not wanting to make that mistake.

Both Bob and Kenya got sick with what appeared to be a dog-cold in the fall, but unlike Kenya, Bob didn’t get better after a couple of weeks. A few trips to the vet and some expensive testing later, we got the news. Bob had the canine equivalent of Hodgkin’s Disease (a cancer of the lymphatic system). We began a more expensive regimen of chemotherapy we hadn’t known was ever developed or available for dogs with cancer.

The drugs made his hair fall out – a sad thing for a poodle – and caused him to gain weight like nobody’s business. He managed to last until mid-January, when he went down while doing his business in the yard, and couldn’t get up again. It was time. We met the vet in the parking lot, where she gave him “The Shot” and then it was all over except for the tears.

We buried him below the garden and got a nice angel yard statue as a headstone. Over the years 2 more poodle graves have been added, along with those of several other dogs and cats. We call it our “Pet Semetary” after Steven King’s horror novel, though ours is peaceful and shaded by cherry and dogwood trees, with a weeping willow at the top end.

The vet told me that unless a dog gets hit by a car, in his experience standard poodles and boxers ‘always’ die of cancer. Is this a genetic issue? So I did a little research on the web and found an interview with a geneticist and dog fancier published on the American Boxer Club website.

The article is Research on Canine Longevity & Dog Breeding, with geneticist John Armstrong of the University of Ottawa, and it offers some interesting insights. First, he takes some issue with the surveys of dog longevity over sizes and breeds, as well as between mixed breeds and purebred dogs.

Armstrong does mention that a major factor affecting purebred longevity has to be inbreeding. If a breed as old and established as poodles is living shorter lives than before, inbreeding must play a significant role. Yet he mentions another factor that may play just as significant a role in the issue, particularly my issue of why poodles (and boxers) tend to die of cancer rather than some other problem that affects larger dogs…

Increasing exposure to environmental toxins and carcinogens. Which – let’s face it – has to be playing more of a role in the human “cancer epidemic” than inbreeding! Add to this the genetic stress of inbreeding that inevitably occurs because there are only so many lines to draw from, and one gets a predisposition or inability for the immune system to deal with environmental factors that can lead to cancer.

I’m guessing there isn’t much to be done by the individual dog owner, except to be as careful as possible to trace their pup’s ancestry, asking specific questions about how long the relevant ancestors lived and what they died of. With AKC registered animals, this is not too difficult, and many of the previous owners will be happy to share that information if you but ask.

On top of that, a commitment to providing the best food and treats for your animals – choosing organic or close to organic brands with the least added chemicals and preservatives that can be obtained – won’t hurt. Being very careful of any type of table scraps the dog may get, regular health check-ups, lots of exercise… all these things tend to help people avoid cancer, they won’t hurt your poodle either.

But in the end, we all die of something. End of life issues are no less a concern for pets than for people, as people do tend to invest a lot of love and suffer a lot of heartache when their pets die. For that, there are some fine websites dedicated to sharing grief, which can help a lot.

I’ve also written about poodle crossbreeds and the benefits.

Links:

Canine Longevity & Dog Breeding

How Long Will Your Dog Live?

Euthanasia: How Will I Know When It’s “Time”?

Pet Loss Grief Support