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Originally Posted by spidey  One vet at the clinic I work at has done a hemimandiblectomy a few times and she says the dogs do very well, so that's now four vets' opinions. I think this is one of those things that is worse for the humans ("ew, I'd hate to have that happen to me") than for the dog.
That said, I'm sorry about your dog, and only you can decide if this is the right thing to do for an older dog. |
That may be the opinion of 4 vets. The surgery may do very well but osteosarcoma can not be cured. Better to seek out the statistics of dogs who surive for years. I doubt you will find any dogs with osteosarcoma of the mandible live for years after surgery and that's the only way to assess the success of surgery.
As I said in an earlier post. It's often a case of "The surgery went well but the patient died shortly after". Most vets do not have the expertise or the knowledge of cancer that an oncologist does.
What does 'dogs do very well' when surgery is done mean? It won't cure the disease so that to me doesn't mean the dogs do well at all. The end result is they die of the cancer. By the time osteosarcoma is able to be diagnosed it has already metastasised.
It is definitely not a case of anthropomorphising. I don't think "ew, I'd hate to have that happen to me". Walk a while in my shoes. That's superficial and diminshes the love we have for our dogs. I would do anything to keep Sophie alive. If surgery could give her pain free years then I'd go ahead but it can't.