Cancer. It’s scary stuff. Every day, I hear another story of an elderly dog and cat diagnosed with neoplasia, and my heart hurts for those dealing with it. Without a doubt, cancer sucks, and every new breakthrough is a gift.
There’s lots of theories and evidence pointing to different causes of cancer. Food, say some. Chemicals, say others. Vets peddling food and chemical-laden vaccines, say many. And I’m here to tell you this: They’re right.
What? Say it ain’t so!
It’s true. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and going back through my years of work in the veterinary field, and I’m here to tell you this: In the United States, the leading causes of cancer in dogs and cats are:
Vets Lead to Cancer. There, I said it.
The epiphany came to me a couple of years ago, when I was in Granada, Nicaragua. Life is simpler there, freed of the constraints and interferences from big companies typical of our American lifestyle. The dogs down there? They are free.
Down in many of the places I’ve visited such as Granada, Iquitos, and Turks and Caicos, the dogs aren’t exposed to commercial pet foods. They eat like their ancestors, from what they can scavenge.
They don’t get injected with toxins/vaccines/anything.
And they certainly don’t have their reproductive organs rudely removed. They live and die the way God intended, without Big Corporate Interference.
And when you compare the causes of death in these areas to the causes of death here in the States, one thing is for sure:
When Vets, Pet Foods, and Medicine Stay out of the Picture, Cancer Does Too.
(Well, except for that nasty transmissible venereal tumor that is rampant in stray populations in tropical and subtropical climates and leads to a premature agonizing death, but let’s look past that all-natural death for a minute.)
Here’s the thing that has had researchers and doctors and scientists scratching their heads for years: No one can predict when cancer will strike. Sure, there are certainly things that can predispose one to tumorigenesis, such as genetics (sorry, Golden Retriever lovers), or the feline leukemia virus (sorry, 2-3% of all cats in the US with this vaccine preventable illness), but the truth is cancer is a capricious, heartless bastard.
Sometimes it strikes young people or pets who have eaten nothing but organic kale salad and free range chicken their entire lives. Sometimes it skips that old person who’s been pumping themselves full of tobacco and GMOs and grain-fed beef, or the dog who’s been swimming in toxic waste on a daily basis.
The Number One Cause of Cancer Is This
There are plenty of known risk factors for the development of cancer in certain populations, but only one that without a doubt spans all species in all countries: AGE. Age causes cancer.
When I was in Granada, what was the main reason I saw so few dogs with cancer? Was it their diet of plastic wrappers and banana peels? (No.) Their lack of vaccines? (No.) It was because until World Vets showed up with their evil boxes of toxins and Frankenkibble and neuter packs, the average lifespan of a dog down there was four years old.
Big Pharma, Big Pet Food, and Big Vet Med directly correlate with the number one cause of cancer: living long enough to get it.
That horrible Nationwide ad from the SuperBowl has nothing on us.
The cocoon of health
If you want to keep your pet from dying of cancer, get suspicious bumps checked out asap, don’t let your pet pick up smoking, and cross your fingers. Or kill them off early by letting them get so fat they develop diabetes or die of heat stroke the first warm summer day you try to go for a walk. I guess that works too.
Living as we do in a comfortable place with reliable access to medical care, we’ve forgotten about the realities of all-natural living, for us and for our pets. Measles. Polio. Rabies. Organic, GMO free viruses that will kill you.
Vaccine preventable diseases suck, which is why the vaccines were developed in the first place. They are far preferable to the disease itself, and if you say otherwise (some people have), I invite you to the streets of India where rabies kills lots of children, every day. 55,000 people a year worldwide-mostly children, and 20 MILLION dogs culled in an attempt to control it.
Pet food is a reliable and affordable way to feed pets for 95% of the population here in the States. If you want to cook for your pet, more power to you, but remember this: Even the gnarliest brand you can think of is better than starving, and if you say otherwise (some people have!) I invite you to Iquitos to decide which dogs are healthy enough to save and which we have to euthanize out of kindness.
Number of people who turned down free vaccines, vet care, and food in Granada: Zero, because they were sick of seeing dead dogs in the street. Pets finally living to ten years, the age at which cancer becomes the leading cause of death, is pretty priceless.
The Four Horsemen of the Dogpocalypse
The four horsemen of the apocalypse are, if I recall correctly, Vaccines, Pet Food, Rational Debate, and Veterinarians. Oh wait, I got that backwards. It’s Pestilence, Famine, War, and Death- the stuff the first four are trying to prevent.
How easily we forget that in our armchair indignation.
Two years ago I attended a talk by Dr. David Waters during his Old Grey Muzzle Tour. He’s studying aging in Rottweilers as well as aging in people and cancer. At the time, the oldest rottie is his study was a female that was 15y5m1w. He stated age as being a reason canines and humans get cancer. That once you get past a certain age you won’t get it. Of course it was up in the late 70s (or 11+ for dogs). I spoke with him after the talk to discuss Blade’s cancer at such a young age. We also discussed Cookie and her advanced age. Unfortunately since I don’t have record of her birth she can’t be a part of his study. But it was interesting to see the connection between aging humans and dogs in terms of cancer.
The incidence peaks at 10 and seems to drop off. No one knows why- maybe there’s some range where if you’re going to get it, that’s when it’s most likely to hit. Maybe those 100 year old people have some anti-tumor gene we’re unaware of yet. Fortunately for us, cancer in the young is pretty uncommon. The Morris Animal Foundation Golden Retriever Lifetime Study will be groundbreaking, I think.
Is it 10 for dogs and cats both? I have two cats that are 12 this year, and both of them are pretty healthy still.
The ten is for dogs. I would have to double check if that number is known for cats, but I see plenty of 18 year olds still kicking about 🙂
My KinKStar lived 19 years before I sent her to heaven.
Wow, that is fantastic! What a wonderful job you did.
My Gizmo Cat is 16 years old, and Drakey is going on 14. Plus I have 3 more cats living with me .. All were rescues .. and vrious ages .. The youngest is 16 months old . Plus I have 4 Rescue dogs. Ages 4 months to 5 years…
i just lost my best-friend kitty to cancer in august. she was two months shy of 16 years old. i’m still grieving. there’s a relationship with a cat that just doesn’t exist with a dog. i have two dogs, whom i love dearly, but the bond is just not the same as it was with my cat. in any case, cancer can apparently still strike post-10 years. my dogs are little, so thankfully, they’ll be around awhile yet. they are 6.5 and 7 years :~)
Cancer can strike whenever, unfortunately, but hopefully not to your little ones! I’m so sorry you lost your sweet kitty.
My cats made it to the ripe old age of 16. They were adopted about 6 weeks apart and passed away within days of each other of different old-age-related issues. I have a friend whose cat lived to be at least 22. If your cats are indoor-only, average lifespan for an American Shorthair is 15-20 years so you should have a few good years left.
That upsets me because we discovered that Chevy had prostate cancer when he was 12, thinking it was a fairly new situation. So if they don’t get it after 11 then he had cancer, and likely pain, from 10 yrs old at the latest. That is something that just kills me, that they do not show pain. If ONLY they could tell us where it hurts!
Oh no, I don’t want people to misunderstand what the commenter was saying. Cancer can strike at ANY age, though it seems to be most common in the range close to 10 years old. There’s no reason to beat yourself up, it is entirely possible that he was affected very shortly before you noticed.
I have to believe that, like with us, cancer is pretty painless until its final stages. that’s why it’s so often missed until it’s too late. it’s not your fault, mz, just like it wasn’t mine. there was nothing either of us could have done to save our furbabies. just keep them as happy and loved as possible while they still had quality of life left. (and darnit, now I’m crying again!) as they say, remember the good times.
Beautifully stated.
thank you, dr v. and thanks also for your earlier comment to me, as well as your article! I forget all the things I want to say, sometimes. forgive me. my heart thinks faster than my head can write. especially when it comes to furry loved ones. (I’m an empath, so that extends far beyond my own family!)
There are exceptions to everything just like with humans and diseases. I know it’s easy to beat yourself up over it but don’t. My OES got testicular cancer around age 10. It’s not a hard and fast rule. And the research is still evolving. And I completely understand. I still have trouble accepting the passing of my beloved Rottie although many vets and specialists told me I did all that was possible. Dogs are stoic creatures and so good at hiding their pain.
Wow. Nice work, Dr. V.
Thank you C! 🙂
For me, the “shocking truth” is that we, especially in North America, are so in denial about the reality of dying that we have lost a focus on living today well. Not everyone of course, but too many. Sometimes me too. May we live each day well, with compassion, helpful to other living beings, caring for our planet, sharing with others, and loving our vet. And yes, one day I will die too.
It’s true. Something’s going to get us, so we might as well just do the best we can with what we have, not think about it too much, and enjoy the gift we have every day! Wise words, Barbara.
Thanks for this. I will be sharing this over social media for years, I am sure.
Thank you!
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for this post! As an adopter of a Potcake from the Bahamas, I was all ready to jump in with “but the street dog populations only live to three or four years old!” and then you said it for me. Although my dogs live in the lap of luxury, they eat a partial kibble diet and if you believe some of the articles that are getting wide circulation, I’m practically a murderer! I don’t discount the effect of environmental carcinogens but I think we have to keep things in perspective – dogs are living longer lives and their care is steadily improving. I think now that people have a close eye on the pet food industry, there will be increased accountability there as well. I don’t think that the panic-inducing sensationalism like you are spoofing here is the answer, and I think the current vaccine crisis is a perfect example of that.
Potcakes! They’re the cutest!!
Does Potcake mean ‘mutt’? I googled it because I had never heard the term, animal lover that I am, and the pictures look decidedly different. Like they are a mix.
It’s the specific name given to mutts on Turks and Caicos. They have a general sort of size and look but there’s a good amount of variability.
When I saw the blub on Facebook about “big vets and big pharma” I was about to get irate. I read the article preparing to get irate. I have worked in the veterinary industry for 20+ years trying to educate people and doing everything we can to help dogs live longer healthier lives.
I own an 13.5 year old rottie mix who has cancer. I love him and will miss him more than I can even comprehend; but he has cancer because he is over 13 and cancer loves old bodies. I am bless that I have had him for 13 years… He has been reasonably vaccinated and has eaten commercial (but quality) pet food for his whole life. I don’t feel like any of that has contributed to his cancer.
Thank you for this article. It’s what I’ve been saying for years….
And thank you Juliette. You’ve done a great job with your rottie- 13.5 years! Wow! I’m sorry he is battling cancer. Even when we do everything right, it comes, and it’s never a happy thing.
So kind of you to say. He’s brought me so many joys that he’s worth any heartache I have to endure.
Thanks again for the article. I’ve been saying the same for years (although not nearly as eloquently). Our dogs and cats are living to wonderfully ripe old ages, and it’s only because of advancements in care and medicine.
We recently lost our 12 yr old male Aussie to prostate cancer, and our female Norwegian the same year to plain old age. I thought my heart would break, Chevy (the Aussie) was my BABY for so long. But within a short time we were back rescuing another male and female. Life is just not life without the furbabies to love and care for. We eat organic vegetarian diet now so they eat organic dog food too, but our very senior furbabies ate regular dog food their whole lives. You just do what you can and enjoy every minute with them!!
I, I suspect like a lot of readers, had a little bit of rage at the title of your article, but it is of course very interesting and well reasoned. One of my lecturers at vet school pointed out to us that life is a terminal condition. From my own experience an owner once complained about the expensive renal diet which I was trying to persuade him to buy for his cat saying “there was nothing like this fifty years ago”. I managed to convince him by saying “yes, and fifty years ago your cat would have died of renal disease before it was diagnosed, now we can do something about it”.
Ah yes, the good old days. People seem to forget about the other great things about the good old days, like scarlet fever, widespread sepsis, iron lungs…
Oh wow. I was about to get outright hostile here and phew. Thank you for the article and for making sense of some senseless rhetoric.
I am chronically ill. I’ve been diagnosed with a range of things, undiagnosed, rediagnosed, each time with new and wonderful drugs and costs and reasonings and then undiagnosed again.
I am constantly battling with people over the idea of Big Pharma and I happily tell them that if Big Pharma can keep me alive until I’m a great-grandma, I will dump money into their pockets.
They’ve kept me alive for nearly a decade and I want MORE. I’m only 34 and I have a nearly 10 year old daughter. Yes, it was her birth that triggered a succession of things that I’ve had since birth all to flare up at once.
I try to let them know that genetic illness and life don’t often make a good combination and that Big Pharma is doing everything to help me but haters gonna hate.
I spend my year battling illness and fostering and bottle feeding kittens. I lost my male cat at 10.5 to FLUTD and then lost my 21 month old replacement cat to Idiopathic Cystitis.
Everyone keeps telling me these things happen and I hate it and I want someone or something to blame. Same with my own illness, but I can recognise that sometimes our bodies aren’t meant to be long for this world, and each day is a blessing.
Which is why I spend so much time looking after orphans. If I can get one of them to live to 10, I’ve done really well.
Oh, bless you for taking care of so many who cannot help themselves. You do good.
Thanks Dr. V. It’s been great surviving past childhood and having the opportunity to learn about providing quality lives for my dogs.
Isn’t it grand? 🙂
Great article! Sometimes as a community of pet lovers we get lost in what we believe is best and scoff at people who feed store brand kibble, or don’t forage for their dogs food. We have always been firm believers that owning a dog shouldn’t be cost prohibitive, we all must do our personal best for our pets. I am thankful that there are programs that offer free/reduced price veterinary care for those in need. I am thankful that we don’t have to see the sad death of our pets from vaccine preventable illnesses.
I feel if the desire is there to provide a loving, stable home and to provide for a pet’s needs to best of your ability, we as a community should be trying to do all we can to help people in that goal by providing access to variety of means to preserve health. So bravo, I agree 100%.