Dog lymphoma is a disease that occurs when the lymph tissue is damaged by cancer cells. As this lymph tissue can be found in any organ or part of your pet’s body the disease can grow and affect almost every organ of the dog. Lymphoma can be found more commonly in middle-aged dogs.
Symptoms of Lymphoma in Dogs
The most visible symptom is swelling of the lymph nodes. Depending on the area that is affected the dog will show symptoms in that area. Probably the most common areas affected by the disease are gastrointestinal tract and chest. If your dog shows loss of appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, and weight loss it may suffer from gastrointestinal tract lymphoma. If you notice shortness of breath in you dog it may be suffering from chest lymphoma.
Diagnosis
In our days there are many types of cancer and also many causes. Lymphoma in dogs can be diagnosed with a biopsy of the affected lymph nodes or organs. The stage of the disease is very important when it comes to treatment and prognosis. To discover how bad the disease is, there can be performed also tests like bone marrow biopsy, x-rays, ultrasound, blood analysis. You’ll never know the cause of the condition. The best thing you can do is to focus on the treatment. Untreated dogs die usually after 2 months from the discovery of the disease. If the disease was discovered early, immune modulation in most cases offers the greatest chances of recovery. Early diagnosis gives your dog 50% chances of survival.
Treatment
The best treatment you can get only from a veterinarian. As in humans with cancer, lymphoma in dogs is treated with chemotherapy. Although only a small percentage of dogs are hospitalized due to side effects, nausea or infections may occur due to chemotherapy. Ask your veterinarian for more information on side effects and emergency hospitalization. If your dog is in later stages of the disease it is very likely that it won’t respond to this treatment type. Fatty acids, like those found in fish oil, may help slow down the growth and spread of cancer tumors, and also prevent weight loss and muscle wasting.
Studies have shown that dogs rarely die of cancer. They usually die of liver or kidney failure. These conditions are cancer’s side effects and they can be avoided by controlling the pet’s diet in most cases.
Prognosis
The treatment of lymphoma in dogs can be effective in most cases. However, this is one of the diseases that will likely recur in the future. A second treatment with chemotherapy can be given, but the effect will last even less that the last one. Although the disease seems curable it keeps on coming back. You should also know that this chemotherapy treatment protocol can be very expensive. No matter how many treatments you administer to your pet if the disease keeps on coming back your dog may pass away in a couple of years from diagnosis.
If you have any doubts and you think that your dog might have this deadly disease called lymphoma don’t hesitate and visit immediately a veterinarian for a full diagnosis.

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Heartworm is a disease that could take you by surprise. Before starting any treatment for heartworm you should first know how the disease acts. If your dog gets the disease it is in great danger as the worm is known to be fatal in most untreated cases. In dogs, it takes about six months before the heartworm turns into an adult worm that may threaten your pet’s heart. As these worms get inside the body of your pet, they could reproduce, situation you must avoid.
A couple of treatments have been developed to cure this deadly disease. The disease is not too well known among common pet owners. As the disease can infect humans too, people should be better informed about the disease and how it should be treated in case the pet is already infected.
Let’s start with an overview of the disease. The heartworm is a roundworm which is transferred from host to host with the help of mosquito. Mostly it infects dogs, but can also infect cats, foxes, wolves and humans as well. It is very important for your dog’s health that you know as many as you can about the heartworm disease. The disease gets its name from the fact that when the worm is an adult it establishes in the pulmonary artery of the host where it can survive for several years.
A good treatment it’s mandatory as the infection could cause a serious disease that could endanger the life of your pet, even death if untreated.
The worm gets through several life stages until it develops into an adult worm and lives on the heart of the pet. The worm then produces thousands of microfilariae each day, and then it would circulate in the dog’s bloodstream. When the dog is bitten again by a mosquito, even by an uninfected mosquito, it transmits the disease to the mosquito. Now the mosquito will transmit the disease to another host.
Diagnosis is the most important step in helping treat heartworm infection. Dogs infected with heartworm do not reveal any signs until the worms have reached maturity or at least after a 6 month period. You must pay attention to any mood change or other signs and symptoms. After this period, the animal will show a sedentary lifestyle. This is the most common symptom for the heartworm disease. Other symptoms like cough and exhaustion and in cases of advanced stages of infection weight loss, coughing up blood, fainting, and heart failure may occur.
Before starting a treatment for heartworm, your pet must go through an evaluation of organs like heart, kidney and liver function to see if any risks are involved. After this check up, adult worms are treated with an arsenic-based compound. There are several approved drugs on the market that help treat heartworm infection.
After and during the treatment the dog must then rest for a few weeks just enough time to enable it to recover from the treatment. The microfilariae are treated with a different and separate form of treatment.

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