Crazy Mare Chronicles

I’ve seen a few people look up mast cell cancers in dogs as the search criteria that have come to my site.  Please click “Jake” on the right hand side to see all of the info of mast cells that I have in this blog.  Of course, feel free to read any of the other stuff in here too, though!  Just making it easier.

Jake has another bump that’s been on the lower part of his back leg for quite a while now.  I don’t know if it’s getting any bigger, but looking at it today, I’m starting to wonder.  I think he’s irritating the area by licking-he seems to have a hot spot in that general area-so it may not be anything.  I’m going to wait a few more days and see if anything changes, then maybe bring him to the vet.  Here’s the interesting news, though:  A friend at the stable has a horse that has a skin cancer and she recommended that I try something called A’dobe Angel.  It’s a supplement that has actually shrunk the tumors in her horse and has caused a lot of cancers in animals to go into remission.  I’m very interested in it and I’m trying to find more information on it.  I ordered a small bag of it and we’ll see what it’s all about when it comes in.  Just a thought, though, for those of you looking up mast cells and different kinds of cancers in dogs.  It can’t hurt to look at all the options!  I’m not a big advocate of herbal medicines mostly because they aren’t studied as much as the prescription drugs and a lot of them are hype.  I’m very skeptical about this too, but again, it’s getting very hard to afford surgeries on Jake every 6 months and he’s not a young guy anymore.  At what point do you say ok-that’s enough sugery?  I just don’t know.  He seems happy enough for now, and he has had a lot less swelling since switching him back to the grain free diet, so this may be all we need to do for now.  More when I find out more!!!

I’m posting this in case someone looks up mast cell cancer treatments in dogs or something like that in a search engine and happens upon my blog-

I was feeding Jake a no-grain dog food for a long time, but he continued to get mast cell tumors popping up here and there anyway over the course of a year, so I decided recently to swtich him to Pedigree.  Bandit loves Pedigree-he gobbles it up like he wouldn’t before with the no grain diet of Taste of the Wild, so it’s been good for him and hopefully it’ll help him put on some weight.  I noticed a change in Jake, though.  The tumor that was removed on Jake’s back leg still has some residual mast cells in it because it keeps swelling up now and then.  It would be impossible to remove all the cells in an area like that, so we expected that there would be swelling even though on a subsequent needle biopsy it appears that all the cells were removed.  While he was on Taste of the Wild (the grain free diet), the swelling would happen occassionally, but not too bad and only once in a while.  When I switched him to Pedigree (the food that includes rice and such as fillers), his leg swelled up really bad!  I kept him on it for 2 days-there was constant swelling in his leg.  I went out and bought some more Taste of the Wild, and started him back on that while keeping Bandit on Pedigree.  Jake’s swelling has gone down almost completely. 

I’ve heard in different places that mast cell tumors could possibly be caused by food allergies in dogs and that grains are a big source of those allergies.  I didn’t entirely believe it until now!  There has been a huge change in Jake’s comfort level and symptoms just by switching to a grain free diet.  I figure now that any other swelling in his leg while he was on Taste of the Wild before could have been caused by foods he was getting as table scraps (or foods he was stealing…..) and now I’m very careful about what I feed him off the table.  We’ll see if that helps even more.  I’m hoping so!  I’ll probably be switching Bandit back over to Taste of the Wild, too-he doesn’t like it quite as much, but he eats it, and if it’s better for him, then it’s worth the extra cost. 

For anyone looking up diet for mast cell tumors or other cancers in dogs, I know there are several grain free diets available now.  Taste of the Wild is only one of them, but it’s the cheapest one I’ve sound so far.  Evo is another very popular one, and I know there were a few others available at the feed store I go to.  You probably need to go to a pet store to find grain free foods, but if you have a local feed store that sells dog foods, you’ll probably find it cheaper. 

I hope this helps Jakeman!  He’s been happier already since I switched him back to this food, so I think it probably has been a change for the better.