Letters from readers:

What course of action will
help fight canine cancers?

Hello,
I have had several rescue dogs that I took care of for many years. I feed them high quality dog food and canned but it is not organic. It does not have antibiotics, pesticides or hormones in it and it is wheat, corn and soy free. However, I have had three die from cancer and I just don't know what to do to really pump up their immune systems. I am giving the remaining dogs that I have a Kyolic garlic high-potency capsule three times a week. It is the latest formula that Wagner has out, formula 112. The info on this said it actually did better than the raw garlic.

There are so many websites that want to sell something for the immune system and I don't know what is best without being really expensive. I would really appreciate any information you can give me. I love my dogs and I want to build their immune systems so they can fight off disease. Thank you so much. - Gayle

Hello Gayle,
First, congratulations go to you for being a person who adopts rescue dogs - they are a delight and full of love and appreciation for a good forever home. Cancer is still one of the mysteries of our times, and no less for dogs than people. There are certain types of it that do run in families (like some strains of breast cancer in humans) and there are others that may be viral and still more that may be mutations that begin when the body is at its weakest, or possibly at vaccination sites or from spray carried from surrounding farm areas, or contaminated chew treats (I bought three rawhide chews for our three dogs once and within half an hour they had all vomited the chews up again), or hundreds of other possibilities.

The only advice I can give is that if you have the time, it is always best to cook the dogs' food yourself. We always do that - we use rice (alternate between whole grain and white rice) as a good base food and cook it up in a very large pot with a good quality meat like beef mince, gravy beef, organ meats, fish fillets, chicken (all organic if possible), and whatever vegetables we have at the time, washed and cut in pieces. We also add an egg for each dog and stir it in the mixture, and a small cup of protein powder (organic hemp). If the dogs are young and growing they may need some calcium powder added to keep their bones strong. You can cook up all sorts of variations on the mixture and use different meats or vegetables or even tinned fish or vegetables like tomatoes or tuna if you are in a hurry. When cooking the food yourself you know exactly what is going into it and you know there are no hidden ingredients. You can also adjust what you put in the mixture such as cutting any fat off the meat for overweight dogs or using tripe which is good for weight loss, but don't cut fat off for dogs of normal weight.

Sometimes it is good to get them a treat, say fortnightly, like a big, meaty, raw beef bone from the butcher. Large raw bones are natural food for the dog and help to keep the teeth clean, but never give them cooked bones that can splinter and cause stomach or intestine injury. If you need some help with making sure the food contains all the dogs need, check with your vet or animal nutritionist, but don't let your vet change your mind - many would much rather you bought the very expensive processed foods that most vets offer in-house.

About the garlic - that may not be a good idea. Research has revealed that in dogs onions or garlic (any vegetable of the onion family) can cause the red blood cells to explode within the body and the dog can die from anaemia. To have that effect the dog would have to eat a huge amount of onions, such as getting into your vegetable cupboard and eating a kg bag of them. However, although a small amount would not have that effect it is questionable what effect a tiny amount every day will have on the dog. Certainly one would expect that if the dog lost only a few blood cells daily the constant loss would eventually start to have an effect. We avoid all products with onion or garlic content now - we used to give our dogs a raw garlic clove daily and never had problems but better to be safe than sorry.

I hope that helps you a little - it may not keep away genetic cancers but it should keep up the immune system strength and help them fight off any other threatening problems. - Ed