Swiss Lick Swissies

Follow Up

Thursday, January 14th, 2010 | Gryffindor | No Comments

I thought I should post this for those of you that may be curious and don’t belong to the dog forums where it has been discussed.

It turns out that Gryffin definitely had cancer. More specifically, hemangiosarcoma. The emergency vet opted to biopsy the tumor on his prostate for their own information and decided to share the findings with us.

Hemangiosarcoma is an ugly cancer. According to information found on Wikipedia and a few other sources, it’s a “rare, rapidly growing, highly invasive variety of cancer.” Blood vessels will grow directly into the tumor, and they frequently fill with blood. (Remember Gryffin’s abdominal cavity full of blood? It was a ruptured tumor.) It is more common in dogs than in humans, but I understand there have not been a ton of reported cases with Swissies. Dogs with hemangiosarcoma rarely show any clinical signs until after the tumor has become very large or has ruptured, like Gryffin’s.

To be honest, even if the only tumor in Gryffin’s body had been on the spleen, he probably wouldn’t have survived very long. Average survival with treatent (chemotherapy in comination with other drugs) is 5-7 months. I don’t think I could have put Gryffin through that.

So now you know too.

Tags: Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, Gryffin the Swissy