Buddy the Rescued Rottweiler

You can read all about how Buddy came to be in our household on the About page of this blog, but I did want to make sure that everyone got a chance to see Buddy as he is today. I took this picture just a few minutes ago just after Buddy came in from the back yard.

The picture itself doesn’t really do Buddy justice, but for some reason he is very hard to take pictures of. He does NOT like the camera, so he tends to be a bit shy around it.

As you might have read on his adopted sisters blog (http://nikkitherott.tripawds.com ) Buddy was diagnosed with bone cancer on 3/15/10. We don’t yet know what type of cancer he has, but we’re hoping that we caught it soon enough and we might even be able to spare the limb. We’ll know more next week after he’s further evaluated.

The Diagnosis

As is typical with bone cancers, we thought that he maybe twisted his knee or something like that. You’d think we would have been a bit more prepared for the “C word”, given that we’d just gone through this a few months back with Nikki, but of course you’re never really prepared for that. As you can see in the following X-Ray, we see some extra growth right behind the knee:

We are very hopeful that since this has been identified early, that we’ll be in a position to do some advanced surgery to remove the cancer and yet spare the limb. We’re also going to consult with Dr. Friedly (Nikki’s holistic vet) to see what he recommends.

Right now we’re just letting Buddy take it easy on his leg (He’s already starting to limp pretty bad and not use it) and we’re trying to think positive thoughts about it.

One very challenging complication about this is that we’ve already identified the fact that Buddy has hip dysplasia. Unfortunately he wasn’t treated very well in his early life, so he’s developed the typical malnourished “big dog” hips. This will of course make it difficult for Buddy as a tripawd, so we’re really hoping that we don’t have to go that route.

It’s a really sad thing to think that just as Buddy has found the home that he deserves, he has to go through this. But, all things happen for a reason, and I suppose it’s much better that he go through this with us as opposed to some family who may not have the means to take care of him.

We will keep this page updated as Buddy progresses through his treatment.