An ME owner responds to request for help with tumor on another ME dog:

“I am sorry to hear that your Jake has this tumor. I am in a similar situation with my eldest dog (not my Emmy, who had myasthenia gravis 9 years ago as a 2 year old puppy and is doing well after remitting about 7 years ago), a 14 year and 9 month old female Doberman mix named Gillis (after the old Dobie Gillis TV show), who was diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer on January 24 of 2012.

Gillis was given only weeks to live, but she is still alive and doing well (at least externally), today marking 14 weeks of survival since diagnosis, which has given me a chance to spend a lot of time with her and spoil her as much as I can while I still have the chance. I do not know how much longer she has, but I am very happy to have had this much time with her, much more than I expected. She is not the oldest pet I have ever had (3 dogs have lived to be older, 2 to over 15 and 1 to over 16), but as of last month she became my senior-most pet ever (i.e., the one I have had the longest), passing up the previous one, a cat I had had for 14 years  and 6 months. I have how had her for 14 years, 7 1/2 months.

I think the reason she is still with me is that as soon as the diagnosis was made, I began to give her high doses of a natural substance that is known to have some anti-cancer properties, the spice curcumin, which is an ingredient of the spice turmeric, which is used in most curries. It seems to greatly slow the growth of at least some cancers (though probably not all, since all cancers are different), and it may even completely stop the growth of a few. I have used it with some success with some previous dogs, as have some others I have recommended it to. I first used it 7 years ago with an old dog with melanoma who was given 2 months to live, who in fact lived 2 1/4 more years before it finally got him.

I would recommend you try it with your Jake. It may or may not help, but it is inexpensive and generally has few if any side effects, even at high doses. I am currently giving Gillis 8 500-mg capsules of about 95 percent pure curcumin a day. One of those 8 capsules is a special brand that includes pepper extract, which enhances the digestion of the curcumin. Normally only a small fraction of the curcumin that gets ingested actually gets digested into the body, but the pepper extract greatly increases that, maybe tenfold. It is a little more expensive than the plain capsules I also give her, so I give her one at the same time as the 7 others, so it will hopefully help with the digestion of all. You can find it online by Googling something like “buy curcumin”, where you can find lots of vendors. Fewer vendors have the pepper extract. The one I am currently using is Doctor’s Best, which I buy online. The one without the pepper extract is Nature’s Bounty, which I can get at my grocery (a Kroger) in its natural medications section.”