My fiance, Danny, and I got Cali, our Scott(Standard) Type American Bulldog, after she had been in a seemingly traumatic experience. She was dumped off at a friend’s house and when we saw her she had a huge burn on the side of her face and was pretty emaciated. Our friend had another dog and they became best friends, but Danny and I knew he needed some help, so we would help with walks, got her a collar, harness, leash, and eventually paid for her to be spayed. It still wasn’t enough and our friend just could not keep her anymore. So, we took her in. She became our third musketeer and the best dog in the whole world; learning tricks easily, being very gentle, and hardly ever barking.
We took her in around October 2010 and a little over 2 years later we discovered a small bump on her right side. I thought it was a spider bite and watched it and it eventually went down and seemingly away. This wasn’t so. About a month later the bump came back. At this point we were worried so we took her to our vet for a checkup. The vet was even stumped by this since it had come and gone and never changed in size. We decided to have an aspiration done on it. A couple of days later our vet called us and confirmed that it was in fact a mast cell tumor. We were devastated. We didn’t really have a lot of money, but we gathered the funds and went ahead with the removal process. Cali went into surgery and Danny and I held our breath the whole time. She came home with us and the waiting game commenced. There were a lot of tears and hugs of reassurance until I finally received, while at school, the best phone call of my life. Our vet left a message explaining everything to me. The tumor was of low grade and they were able to get clean margins in the removal which meant no radiation. We had caught it all in time and there was an extremely slim chance of it ever coming back. I broke down in tears on campus and got a hold of Danny to tell him the great news.
Our little baby is a survivor and was going to be with us for a long time. Neither of us could imagine our lives without this little bundle of joy and now we wouldn’t have to for quite some time. Cali is still a healthy girl and continues to hog the bed and give us love. Early detection and straight out worry helped us to save our baby. She may be left with a nasty scar, but she is also left with her life.
Danny & Emily