My dog has cancer. Can she vomit feces while on palliative care?

Hello. Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. I am so sorry to hear that Piper passed away. Yes, it is possible she had cancer. She could have had a stomach ulcer that perforated. She may have had heart disease that caused her passing. The only way to know for sure what happened would have been to have your vet perform a necropsy (autopsy). Without doing that, all we can do is guess. Again, I am so sorry for your loss. Hope this answered your question.

I am very sorry that Missi is so ill. Unfortunately there is a chance that the cancer has spread to her lungs, which would likely cause the coughing, unless she has a congestive heart condition. Not pooping could be because either the mass has grown so big it is obstructing the rectum and poop cannot pass by it to the outside, or pooping is painful and she just holds it in. So the next step here would be to check if the coughing is indeed caused by metastases or not. An x-ray would be diagnostic. As for the mass in her anal gland, your vet probably is afraid of removing it as it could make your dog incontinent, while not really extending her life as it already has spread to the lymph nodes, and is likely spreading through the body. So, as painful as the thought is, I believe you may need to prepare to say good bye soon in order to prevent her from suffering. Listen to Missi. She will tell you when it is time to let go. Your vet may be able to give her a laxative to facilitate feces to pass, after checking whether there is any gap at all. If there is not, then I am afraid it would be cruel to wait until she has serious life threatening problems with fecal toxicity and constipation. So I am very sorry the news is not better. :isten to Missi. Missi will know. And give her lots of TLC.

Hi. I'm so sorry about Bella's diagnosis. Be sure to talk with her veterinarian about palliative care and pain management. If she is straining try to differentiate if she is trying to urinate vs defecate. If she is having difficulties with defecation you can try increasing the fiber of her food with a bit of canned pumpkin and/or moisture content with wet/canned dog food. Make all diet changes slowly so as not to cause diarrhea. If this isn't enough ask her vet about stool softeners or laxatives she can have.

I am so sorry to hear about Buddy. You do not mention Buddy’s age but a few things could be going on. Foreign body obstruction is possible in any dog that is vomiting profusely. (Especially if he is known to chew or eat things he shouldn’t.) This can also be an infection like parvo or leptospirosis. Kidney or liver disease, and, as you mentioned cancer (possible melanoma or hemangiosarcoma by appearance) is possible. I strongly encourage you to see your vet as soon as possible. S/he will recommend bloodwork and/or X-rays to help narrow down which of the above might be causing the problem. The skin lesion may be totally unrelated to why Buddy is vomiting, dehydrated, etc. Best of luck to you and Buddy!

If the masses on the liver / spleen ruptured, I would expect her abdomen to be getting larger and her gums to be getting pale due to the hemorrhage. If she has black tarry stool, my concern is that the cancer is also somewhere in the GI tract. If clinically she is unchanged and doing ok, I would speak with the oncologist and see what the recommendations are in regards to this. The fact that there are cancerous changes evident on the liver and spleen, tells me that this is spreading, which is not good. However, that being said, these could be benign. I just worked on my friends dog who had a liver mass and splenic tumor in his dog. I surgically removed a liver lobe and the spleen and the dog is doing better than ever still and this was done about 6 months ago. There is no way to tell for sure whether or not these are cancerous masses until a biopsy is done or the masses are removed and sent out to the laboratory for testing. As long as Chewy is stable and doing the same, I would recommend speaking with the oncologist and see what their opinion is considering all of these changes. I hope this helps guide you in the right direction. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further.

Thank you for submitting your question regarding Marko. I am sorry to hear about his diagnosis. If he is still eating, drinking and acting like himself, then that seems like a good quality of life. This will likely change as his disease progresses though. In the meantime, you can see about trying a different anti-vomiting medication on him. Cerenia would be a good choice. This may control the vomiting better and help him feel a bit better. I hope this information helps!

I'm sorry Pooh Bear has cancer. It sounds like your vet is doing a good job of trying to treat as best as possible, and I'm assuming the type of cancer diagnosed was transitional cell carcinoma since piroxicam has been prescribed. If that is the case, I have seen these dogs get many more months of good quality life, as long as clinical signs are controlled. If the type of cancer hasn't been determined and the diagnosis has been made on just the fact that he has an enlarged prostate, then I would caution that dogs can have adenocarcinoma of the prostate, another type of cancer which metastasizes readily and is quite aggressive, and ultimately difficult to treat. It typically does not respond to piroxicam. Straining to defecate and pain on defecation with prostatic cancers is usually due to the colon becoming trapped between the enlarged prostate and the enlarged sublumbar lymph nodes. If the cancer is a TCC, it should respond to piroxicam, and the prostate should shrink a bit, which will hopefully improve the symptoms. If the cancer is another type of cancer, unfortunately it's unlikely that the current treatment plan is going to help. Stool softeners such as lactulose may help to improve the consistency of the stool, and make it easier to pass. Your vet might also consider adding on gabapentin as an additional pain reliever to the current regimen, as that may add some additional relief.