Scooby

As soon as Scooby walked through the consult room door it was clear to Noel that there was something serious wrong with this bouncy, waggy tailed Labrador. Scooby had severe right forelimb lameness and was incredibly painful when the bone of his upper forelimb was gently compressed.

We sedated Scooby and took some radiographs of his right forelimb; it was immediately clear that an aggressive bone tumour in his upper forelimb was causing Scooby’s lameness. In addition to the radiographs we carried out a CT examination of Scooby’s chest and abdomen to ascertain if the bone tumour had spread to the lungs or abdominal organs.

Sadly the spread of cancer from the bone to other organs in the body is inevitable. In Scooby’s case there was no evidence of gross spread else where in his body.  While there was no evidence of large tumours, sadly for Scooby, the spread of cancer on a microscopic cellular level will undoubtedly have occurred by the time the bone tumour was identified in his forelimb.

While Scooby’s owners were aware of the poor long-term outlook for Scooby they were committed to giving him the best life possible for the remainder of his life. They agreed to amputation of the leg affected by bone cancer. Amputating the leg immediately removes the pain associated with the rapidly growing tumour . In addition to the amputation we prescribed a course of chemotherapy to Scooby to hopefully prolong his tumour free life for as long as possible.

Scooby enjoying life on 3 legs!

In some instances we can remove the patients bone that is affected by the bone cancer and replace it with a specially designed metal prosthesis – this is called a limb-salvage surgery and you can read more about this surgery in the limb-salvage section of our website: http://www.fitzpatrickreferrals.co.uk/our-services/surgery/conditions/limb-sparing-and-salvage

Sadly, in February 2015, the tumour as we always knew was possible, the tumour did return and the time came where we had to let Scooby go.

We feel honoured to have known and loved Scooby. He was an amazing beacon of love and hope, showing as thousands of animals around the world do every day – that our animal family are the dearest and closest friends that man can have. It is our honour to serve this truly special and unique bond. It has been our privilege to share this journey with Scooby and his family – and there will forever be a space in our hearts that none other can fill.

Thank you David, Gill and Freddy for entrusting your ‘mate’ into our care, and for sharing your love with us.

We love you Scooby x