Bigbore500r
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I have 2 boxer dogs from the same litter, one is a male and the other is female. They just turned 7 and have always been in great health. 2 weeks ago, I noticed the male dog "Kobe" looked like he had dropped a little weight and I also noticed he was not quite as energetic as normal. Him stomach felt a little firm as well. He was eating and drinking, and appeared to be acting fairly normal but I took him in to the vet to get it checked out. They prescribed him some antibiotics, and figured he may have a minor infection of some kind and sent us home. They felt his hard little stomach and did not suspect anything other than a "minor infection, treatable with antibiotics".
1 week later - Dog now suddenly has dropped ALOT of weight / muscle, I get alarmed so took him to a different vet. This vet takes one look at him and feels his stomach and side, and says "this dog propably has low red blood cell counts, I can tell by the color of his gums. And... if I had to guess, I would say has a mass on his spleen, which I can feel behind his ribcage here". She then shows me what she feels and clear as day, you can tell there is a "bump" there. She does blood work and she is right, his red cell count is low. This is due to the spleen growth and possible bleeding from it, causing him to be anemic.
If the growth on the spleen is benign, they can remove the spleen and he will live out the rest of his life as normal, and will recover 100%
If the grown is malignant, they still will remove the spleen and the dog will recover back to 100% for a couple months, but the cancer will spread and the average life expectancy with that cancer is only 3-4 months.
The crappy thing, is that they really cant tell if the spleen growth is cancerous or not without just opening the dog up, removing the spleen and then doing a biopsy after the fact. The good news, is that they did a chest X-ray and the dogs lungs, heart and anything else they can see are 100% clear of any cancer or growths, so that is good and means there is a decent chance it is NOT cancer (or has not spread yet if it is).
Next step is an ultrasound of the abdomen tomorrow, where they will see exactly where the growth is and what size. They said they might be able to tell if it is cancerous, if they notice there are multiple growths on different organs (especially the liver) then it is probably cancer. If it is contained to the spleen, they will then do surgery to remove the spleen - but a biopsy will reveal if that one organ growth is cancer or not.
Bottom line - big $$$ to spend on the dog, I love him to death but hopefully im not just barking up a tree doing all this testing and surgery just to end up putting him down in 3 months. What would you do? I feel like if I dont take each successive step as they come back 'clear", leading up to surgery, i'm giving up on my little buddy. So were gonna do it, and hopefully he just has a benign growth.
Anyone else have experience with spleen growths in large dogs? Apparently it's the #1 killer of golden retrievers, boxers, dobermans....etc from what the vet says.
1 week later - Dog now suddenly has dropped ALOT of weight / muscle, I get alarmed so took him to a different vet. This vet takes one look at him and feels his stomach and side, and says "this dog propably has low red blood cell counts, I can tell by the color of his gums. And... if I had to guess, I would say has a mass on his spleen, which I can feel behind his ribcage here". She then shows me what she feels and clear as day, you can tell there is a "bump" there. She does blood work and she is right, his red cell count is low. This is due to the spleen growth and possible bleeding from it, causing him to be anemic.
If the growth on the spleen is benign, they can remove the spleen and he will live out the rest of his life as normal, and will recover 100%
If the grown is malignant, they still will remove the spleen and the dog will recover back to 100% for a couple months, but the cancer will spread and the average life expectancy with that cancer is only 3-4 months.
The crappy thing, is that they really cant tell if the spleen growth is cancerous or not without just opening the dog up, removing the spleen and then doing a biopsy after the fact. The good news, is that they did a chest X-ray and the dogs lungs, heart and anything else they can see are 100% clear of any cancer or growths, so that is good and means there is a decent chance it is NOT cancer (or has not spread yet if it is).
Next step is an ultrasound of the abdomen tomorrow, where they will see exactly where the growth is and what size. They said they might be able to tell if it is cancerous, if they notice there are multiple growths on different organs (especially the liver) then it is probably cancer. If it is contained to the spleen, they will then do surgery to remove the spleen - but a biopsy will reveal if that one organ growth is cancer or not.
Bottom line - big $$$ to spend on the dog, I love him to death but hopefully im not just barking up a tree doing all this testing and surgery just to end up putting him down in 3 months. What would you do? I feel like if I dont take each successive step as they come back 'clear", leading up to surgery, i'm giving up on my little buddy. So were gonna do it, and hopefully he just has a benign growth.
Anyone else have experience with spleen growths in large dogs? Apparently it's the #1 killer of golden retrievers, boxers, dobermans....etc from what the vet says.