You have a beautiful dog there, and I’m sorry to hear that.
I can speak from some experience. We had a dog that was diagnosed with lymphoma. We switched his food to a grain free dog food. We did K9 Cancer Trio which included K9 Immunity, K9 Transfer Factor, and Fish Oil. which some people have success with based on testimonials:
http://www.k9medicinals.com/pet-products/dog-immunity-supplements/dog-cancer-support-trio/
They also have an all in one here:
http://www.k9medicinals.com/pet-products/dog-immunity-supplements/k9-immunity-plus/
He refused to take it at a certain point.
We also did chemo. You will be better off than we were if you head to an oncologist. We did the chemo through our vet, and I think it would have been done better with an oncologist. We had some other problems with that vet who misdiagnosed two of our animals.
The bottom line is that he did the first set of chemo and the lymph nodes went down. To me, they never quite felt all the way down, but the vet was pleased. Anyway, fast forward just weeks later (we were counting on a year or so before a relapse), I felt the lymph nodes again. He again started chemo. It always seemed that he would get sick a few days after chemo with diarrhea and vomiting. We had medicine for those things which may have helped a little, but he was sick at least a couple days a week.
The second round of chemo never brought the lymph nodes down. We tried some holistic things. Some people online said they had success with cottage cheese and flaxseed:
http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/pet-cancer-cure-testimonials.html
Our dog refused to eat it even though we tried to flavor it with other things like some pureed meat baby food or gravy.
Ultimately, the lymph nodes kept growing. His stomach began to swell badly. We kept him as long as we could, but at the end, despite still having an appetite (which we attribute to the prednisone), he was very weak. He just got bumped slightly and fell over. He couldn’t jump up on the bed or the couch. The night before we had him put to sleep, he struggled to breathe a good part of the night. He was able to breathe a little better in the morning, but it was a pattern that he had trouble breathing at night more and more. We didn’t want him to suffer any more, so we had him put to sleep.
I don’t have regrets that we tried the chemo. I do have regrets we didn’t go to an oncologist. I wish we could have gotten some of the natural stuff in him more. Ultimately, trying everything (just about - I’ll get to that) made me feel that we did everything that we could. Some people put their dogs to sleep before they start suffering or before it gets bad, but putting the dog to sleep is something taken very seriously, and it wasn’t until we felt he was too sick to go on that we felt it appropriate.
Here is the other option. You are seeing an oncologist. I don’t know where you live, but there is something called a K9 bone marrow transplant that can be done. It’s incredibly expensive, but some people have the funds or want to spend the funds to try it. Very expensive, but your cure odds are so much higher than the 1-2% given with standard chemo. I’ll link here in case you are interested:
http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2015/02/11/dog-bone-marrow-transplant.aspx
I wish you the best of luck. It’s not an easy journey. You have to decide what’s right for your dog and for your family.
My Cancer Veterinary is Dr. Jaclyn Smith in Chicago:
http://www.chicagonow.com/raining-cats-dogs/2013/10/new-chicago-center-offers-pet-cancer/