This sweet golden retriever named Claude celebrated finishing radiotherapy in one of the sole machines in the UK intended for treatment of cancer in animals.
The 9-year-old retriever was diagnosed with a brain tumor back in 2018 and his owner Anita and Ian decided to ask around about the new machine they heard of; the linear accelerator.
The couple was happy to get their dog for treatment at the Royal School of Veterinary Studies in Edinburgh and Southfields Veterinary specialists.
Claude also became one of the first to be treated with this technique in the UK.
Dog Gets a Party & Wears a Party Hat for Successful Radiotherapy
To celebrate the success of the radiotherapy treatments, the vets who took care of him threw him a party-the dog was beaming of happiness with his party hat on.
Anita recalls how devastated she was when they told them the diagnosis in 2018-Claude has been with them since 9 weeks old and has always brought an immense joy. They heard about the new treatment and decided to learn more about it.
This new machine is quite precise and can treat more accurately thanks to a technique known as stereotactic. Thanks to its preciseness, it leaves the healthy tissues intact.
Finally, some Time for the Dog to Enjoy Running around His Favorite Places
First, they went for 10 days so that they can make a CT scan and plan the further treatment. Even though the dog isn’t quite yet out of the woods, he will now be able to get some time to run around his favorite fields in Hadley in Herts together with his owners.
They hope that Claude will get more time to meet both old and new friends. They’ll walk him in new places; unfortunately, he’ll learn to live without his sight which he lost because of the tumor.
Claude’s vet, Juan Carlos Serra, a specialist in Oncology and Radiation Oncology, confirmed that Claude was one of the first to be treated with this technique in the UK.
He explains that it was an amazing pleasure to have him because he is such a handsome boy and they’ll miss him greatly.
He was also a good patient who tolerated the treatment well; however, it’s still hard to predict how effective will this therapy be for the dog. The vets’ hope is to stabilize the tumor for a couple of months and potentially, shrink it in size.
This is the most modern machine in Europe for pets, added the vets. In Claude’s case, a dog that received treatment twice, this was the ideal choice as it was pivotal to lower risk of toxicity by damaging the normal brain.
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