Can you tell me about having a dog on chemo?

[Panicmode1]

My dog is just about to start chemo (low dose) for a mast cell tumour in her eyelid. They have just done lymph node tests and there are 'one or two' in there, but nothing they are concerned about.....so we start chemo imminently. The vet has told me I have to be careful with feeding and picking up after her, but is there anything else I should know. Will her coat go all curly?!

I had a cat on chemo for about 5 years... it’s body fluids you need to be careful of, so toys, licking, that sort of thing as well.

Her coat went a bit finer, but not so you’d notice unless you were the one looking after her coat.

It really depends on what drugs are used there are literally hundreds of protocols for dogs and cats now.
The range from multiple intravenous drugs similar to many human protocol to a single tablet once ever three weeks. Then there is huge range on individual response some animals struggle with even the single tablet having vomiting and diarrhoea and others have no side effects with really massive protocols there is unfortunately no one answer.

Thanks both - she's starting on chlorambucil and the vet said it's a very low dose. But he kept going on about being careful with children in the house etc. So I hadn't thought about the licking/toys etc and was just wondering what else I would have to do, other than wear gloves to give her the medicine. I suppose it just seems such a drastic step, but it's less drastic than having her eye removed, whcih was the other potential option, and may be where we end up if the chemo doesn't work.

It was chlorambucil my cat was on.

I got this terrifying warning sheet with her first dose, so for a week afterwards we were to wear gloves handling her food bowls, toys and clearing up after her any body fluids or waste was to be cleaned up immediately with hot soapy water and she wasn’t to sleep with us.

It totally freaked me out tbh, because well, cat, they’re basically always covered in spit, lol. She also liked to play fetch and spent most of her time next to me, so I couldn’t work out how that was different to sleeping next to her.

The oncologist said there’s never actually been a case of a pet making anybody ill, that it’s really unlikely given the dosage, but, for obvious reasons they have to give you a serious warning about it all.

My dog wasn’t ill after raiding the litter tray the morning after a dose as a puppy that did involve lots of panicky phone calls to the vet and them having to contact other people before deciding it would be fine, rofl, but it was...

So basically, you should get proper instructions and you want to follow them, but, keep in mind that they have to make it sound like more of a risk than it probably is.

thank you, that's reassuring - it sounded as though we were all going to need geiger counters or something afterwards...!

By the way, if she does need her eye removed... I had a dog years ago where we had to have his eye out, (I’m dead lucky with pets, lol) he was absolutely fine as soon as the anaesthetic wore off, other than looking at him having only the one eye, you’d never have known he had an issue.

He was even trying to do all his normal stuff with the stitches still in and getting annoyed because we wouldn’t let him.

So if it doesn’t agree with her or doesn’t work, honestly having an eye removed isn’t that drastic... as in very quickly feeling fine and I’m assuming depth perception is affected, but not so you can tell.

Thank you so much, that all sounds so reassuring. I think I'm worrying about it more than I need to really.