There is not a lot of information about what owners have done with their dogs that had TCC on the Internet.  There was a wonderful site that I found very helpful.  It was written by someone named Sydney who did research at Washington University in the Biochemistry Department, who had a dog named Rennie.  I think Rennie was a Samoyed and looked a lot like Misty.  They had written that because TCC damages the epithelial cells lining the bladder, TCC makes the dog particularly susceptible to frequent bladder infections.  They stressed how important it was to have the correct antibiotic.  If the infection is not treated with an effective antibiotic, the dog may become listless, uninterested in playing, and even exhibit signs of pain such as emitting a sharp whimper when trying to move.  For Rennie, improvement was dramatic up to the last month of her life.  They felt aggressive treatment with the correct antibiotic was essential to maintaining Rennie’s comfort and quality of life.   I was going to contact them because this was exactly what Misty had gone through, but when I went back to the site after the first of the year it wasn’t available anymore.  If anyone has any information on this person and how to get in touch with Rennie’s owner, I would greatly appreciate letting me know.

On Rennie’s site they also said that continuous antibiotic treatment should be avoided in order to minimize selecting for antibiotic-resistant bacteria.  Urine cultures and antibiotic sensitivity testing must be done and it takes about 4-5 days to get the results.  I now plan to test her urine about every three weeks or so, and watch Misty’s behavior for signs of infection.  Misty is still on the Amoxicillin and I am concerned about leaving her on this for so long (it has been 2 months now) as I know that dogs can become resistant to the drug.  But the holistic vet feels that she is doing so well, that we should keep her on for a few more weeks.  I have learned from Rennie that you should discuss the issue of antibiotic therapy, and drug resistance with your vet and not to let your concerns be dismissed lightly.  I went into the vet’s office saying she needs to be on a different antibiotic.  This one is not working anymore.  Your vet may not be sufficiently familiar with kinds of bacterial resistance, which can emerge over six to nine months of antibiotic therapy.

We feel it is important to think out of the box and to seek alternatives when dealing with TCC.  Using Chinese herbs can be beneficial.  These can work well for the specific needs of the dog, but it is important to not do a “shotgun” approach of adding a variety of other nutrients or antioxidants to the herbal treatment without having your dog evaluated by a veterinarian who understands the holistic approach to therapy.  Every dog reacts differently to herbal treatment and, from what I’ve read, the cancers and, or infections seem to progress differently in each dog.  We have read and heard that by only using Piroxicam without any other alternative treatments, the TCC might go into remission.  We didn’t think we would be as lucky with Misty, and I truly believe she would not still be with us if not for the acupunctures, herbs and flax oil. When she was first diagnosed we were hoping she would live a year, and here she is going on 16 months since she was first diagnosed.  I do have to tell you this has been very expensive and it does take a lot of commitment. Her herbs alone were running us about $300 every six weeks.  We have just switched over to using powder instead of pills for her herbs, but it is about $150 every six weeks.  We are averaging about $300 a month now between foods, cultures, herbs, meds, vet visits and acupuncture visits.  I did find a lab that will sell me her Piroxicam at a reduced price, so that helps some with the cost.

We try not to leave her for more than a few hours without letting her out.  She has to go out every 2-3 hours during the daytime and our walks take a long time because she squats a very long time, even after she’s finished.  We have just started to put a diaper on her at night in case she has a mistake, but most nights she is dry in the morning.  We use a brand like Depends and just cut one half down the center with a circular cutout for her tail and cross the elastic straps over her back for tension.  We were cutting a hole for her tail without the cut half way down the middle, but because she has such a big fluffy tail, (although she is losing a lot of her hair on the tip of her tail and seems very sensitive) we had a hard time putting her tail through the hole. I also use unscented baby wipes to wipe the occasional blood after she urinates.

Because we started everything at once we can’t tell what has worked and what doesn’t. I do know that after receiving her acupuncture in about 3 days she is perky and the sparkle and energy level is back for a few weeks. We go about every 3 weeks for her acupuncture.  We also feel strongly that the flax oil with cottage cheese, as well as her herbs has helped her too.  We go for short daily walks twice a day to keep her moving.  Also, since we didn’t have an established relationship with a vet in the area we have seen several vets over the last year. Looking back this might have actually helped Misty since we have been given many different views on what to do; of course it has also caused us to be uncertain about what to do next. We were also disappointed that the veterinarians we saw could not provide any research relating to options for treatment and probabilities of success.  Their approach to treatment was “cookbook.” We feel we were teaching some of the vets what they should have already known.  One vet turned to me and said, “Maybe I should be asking you what to do!”  Even our holistic vet could not provide probabilities of increasing her like span, stating the Chinese have been using herbs for 5000 years, so it must be good.

At this point and time we don’t want to change anything.  I can tell you that it is very important to build the immune system, and to watch for infections.  It appears that if you can control the cancer the most likely cause of death or concern for putting a dog to sleep is related to infections.  At one time Misty’s was so weak that we had to help her get up to walk outside to urinate and it was the infection, not the cancer that was the problem.  If we did not treat her with the correct antibiotic following cultures and sensitivities she would have died.  We feel she has done so well that we will continue to do what we can for her and try to keep her as comfortable and pain free as possible.  Something is working and we are glad to still have Misty in our lives.