Scottish Terrier health and safety

Scottie as a puppy

Scottie all grown up

Samantha asked the Scottish Terrier and Dog Newsto do a memorial for her dog Scottie who died last week. She wrote:

I would really appreciate and be forever grateful, if you would please share Scottie’s story as a memorial for this brave little soul and also to raise cancer awareness to other Scottie owners. Cancer is much more prominent in Scotties then other breeds.

He was a wonderful Scottie and the smartest dog I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He was sweet, charming, energetic, loving, obedient, and just always brought a smile to his families faces. He would talk to us and respond when we would talk to him. He loved helping us hunt for mice and was so joyous when he caught one the first and only time, he strutted around the house for days just as proud as can be. He was and always will be my best friend. I would sit on the stairs every morning before school and share a peanut butter sandwich with him. He is going to be deeply missed and I do not think our hearts will ever stop aching for him.

Scottie has been battling Melanoma Cancer for 6 months now, he is only 4 years old… It all started out around October 2011, Scottie had a dime sized growth on his knee. We took him to the vet, he and said to not pay much attention to it unless it started to grow or bother Scottie or us. So we left it alone and watched it. It started irritating Scottie and growing. We took him back to the vet in November, the doctor removed it with out doing on autopsy first or checking a sample under the microspore. We then did not know any better. Before his stitches completely healed, another growth started, but was growing very rapidly along with multiple pea sized growths going up to his leg to the base of his abdomen. We immediately took him back to the vet, it was around late November. He would not tell us what it was and told us we had to go to a specialist. He referred us to an oncologist. We got in early December, she took a sample and looked at it under the scope – melanoma cancer was the diagnosis. She told us with how aggressive it is we really did not have much time left or many treatments we could do. Most of the treatments take 6-8 weeks to even get into the system and another couple of weeks to start helping, if we removed his leg it would barley heal and the cancer would possible only spread faster when opened up. She also told us, that no matter which road we take there is only an extremely small chance any of them will help. She recommended we let Scottie live a more fulfilled shorter life and put Scottie on Remedol.

Scottie did very well at first, the Remedol slowed the cancers growth and he was his wonderful little self for many months. This month has not been the case. The Remedol stopped working because Melanoma evolves and learns how to get around medications and treatments. The Melanoma has become immune to the medication. All we could to for Scottie when this happened was make him as comfortable as possible and enjoy every good day we have with him.

RIP, Scottie. Our sympathies go out to Samantha and our family.

Here is a resource site on Scottish Terriers and cancer.

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