Chinok

Greetings!

Chinok, a Pyrenean mountain dog, came to us in 2005, when he was 11 months old. The breeder couldn’t sell him because he had a bite on his hock. Since we live on a farm and Chinok’s “brother” was already living with us, we were happy to take him in.

Before, he was only fed dry food, which we immediately changed to a raw diet with lots of bones.

In January 2006, we noticed that he had a wound on his right front leg and was limping. We went to the vet where the x-ray showed osteosarcoma. We were shocked by the news, especially for such a young dog!

The vet recommended amputation and chemotherapy, but added that this would only buy us a year at most. (We were very surprised when Chinok got up and walked the day after the amputation!)

We also started giving him sea pine and various herbal extracts, Omega, vitamins and various chemotherapy support drugs.His last chemo treatment was due in October 2006. We went back to the vet and consulted him about the results. He also did an x-ray of Chinok’s lungs to check for metastasis, however the x-ray showed a spot. Our vet said that it was most likely metastatic and that if we stopped treating Chinok, he had about 3 months to live (we later found out that the medicine he was taking with the chemo had caused a fungal infection in his lungs and that showed up on the x-ray as metastatic). We believed that the main cause of the cancer was a malfunctioning immune system, and we didn’t give up. We ordered K9 Immunity and K9 Transfer Factor, and started treatment even though the researchers at dogcancer.net said ours was a difficult case because osteosarcoma is very aggressive, especially in such a young dog.

Chinok continued to be fed raw food with lots of meaty bones and we continued to give him Sea Pine Extract, K9 Immunity, Transfer Factor, and Omega Fish Oil every day.

Now, in August 2008, Chinok is doing great, happily running around on 3 legs, a great watchdog, protecting our goats and geese from foxes. I think it is important for a dog to have a purpose in life to maintain his health. He gets a lot of love from us and we never think of him as a dog with cancer or an injury.

She never seemed to miss her leg, she took it for granted from the first moment she saw it. We have 7 dogs and Chinok is the pack leader, of course we are the bosses.

We hope our story gives strength to others who also have a dog with cancer.

The photos of Chinuk and his brother Lilou were taken in April 2006 during his chemotherapy treatment.

Yours sincerely, Sharryn Brown