DIAGNOSIS: CANCER. PROGNOSIS: GOOD

Our adopted 14 year old Cocker Spaniel, Scout, was featured in a blog a couple weeks ago when he kept licking his foot to tell me he had a serious problem. I amputated the fifth digit on his right front foot because I knew there was most likely a cancer present. The results are in: squamous cell carcinoma in the nail bed. Luckily, there were clean margins, because I amputated at the third joint instead of just taking the claw and bone. Chances of spread to other areas are only 10 - 29%. Dogs with clear margins have an average of 309 days until signs of spread. Those are pretty good odds for a guy who is already 14. He's back to trotting around with just a little limp and is his happy goofy self again, now that the E-collar is off (boy, did he hate that thing!).

But we want Scout to have the absolute best chance of staying cancer-free, so his diet is going to be changed up a bit. He already eats a raw diet and takes a few supplements that will help. The raw diet is great because he is strong and basically healthy. If he was very weak, I would use a gently cooked diet instead, so that his body wouldn't have to work hard to digest the food. Cancer cells grow best on carbohydrate or fat sources, depending on the type of cancer. So I will make sure his raw meals are fairly low fat, as they are already low carbohydrate. Eggs and ground walnuts or almonds will also find their way into his meals. Along with his 300 mg of Omega 3 fatty acids and 200 mg of CoQ10, I'll be adding 300 mg Shiitake mushrooms or mushroom extract, 1/4 teaspoon Golden Paste (a combination of turmeric, fresh black pepper, and coconut oil), 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground ginger root, 800 mg IP-6 twice daily, and a few extra helpings of love. Luckily, he loves to eat and we can throw anything in his bowl, so he won't even notice a few extra capsules in there. Hopefully, I'll still be showing videos of a happy old man years from now!