The Animal Cancer Foundation estimates that nearly 12 million pets are diagnosed with cancer each year. Cancer is never easy to talk about—which is exactly why pet parents need to strike up a conversation before their pet gets sick.
Dealing with cancer can be emotionally and financially overwhelming. As the head of a pet health insurance company, I see the effects of pet cancer on families every day. As a pet parent, I felt its devastating effects after losing Petplan’s Dog-in-Chief, Wellington, to cancer in 2014.
Despite the pervasiveness of the disease, there are still many myths out there about pet cancer. In the spirit of helping the tens of millions of pet parents on this journey with their pets—and for the many millions more who are lucky enough to have healthy pets—here are some truths everyone who loves a furry friend needs to know about pet cancer. …continue reading this article on Huffington Post
Source: Huffington Post
The article is interesting having just lost my 10 year old Shih Tzu to lymphoma. It paints a rosy picture and while it gives readers hope, I don’t mean to be a downer but what happened in my situation was anything but rosy. Though my dog was early stage, and we attempted chemo. Not all dogs will react positively to chemo. I spent $8K within less than a month due to two negative reactions to only the first two chemo attempts (two different drugs). Not to mention, not everyone has pet insurance though i was looking in December and my dog was diagnosed early January. So we went the non-chemo route…still far more expensive than the article mentions. I’m not just writing about the money…it seems far too many dogs are getting lymphoma and no one can tell for sure if it is the fertilizers/weed n feed products that are going on everybody lawns (without anyone knowing they cause this cancer – not labeled that they can cause cancer) or if it is genetic. My thought is if you don’t know for sure it was the fertilizers/weed products you also don’t know for sure that it’s not. If a product like weed/fertilizers were on the market and we found it caused cancer in children it would be regulated and off the market in a heart beat. Our pets are family, they are like children to many of us. We need to go after MONSANTO and have these products labeled!!! Or, not even used around pets.