Sure, they winced every time they picked up his poo and saw, with mounting dread, the streaks of fresh, red blood. Of course, they lost sleep night after night, imagining his slow but inexorable, painful demise. Naturally, they Googled and matched the symptom with the disease process.
And, yes, they considered life without their faithful friend and how that might affect them. Then, finally, when it all became too much to bear, they popped into the surgery without him, just to have a 'chat'. I wish they had come in sooner.
Bowel cancer is relatively rare in dogs. Far more common causes of rectal bleeding or 'blood in poo' include various forms of colitis or inflammatory bowel disease, parasitic infections, relatively benign polyps and issues concerning the prostate and anal glands. Murphy's history was fairly straightforward.
He was well, had a healthy appetite and had not lost weight. He looked as good as he ever had and had not suffered from chronic or intermittent diarrhea. All good signs.
He regularly had blood in his poo, however, and this could be soft at times. His owners had detected a worsening of symptoms on a Sunday, which seemed odd, until we realised that Saturday night was takeaway night and Murphy's treat was to reduce any food waste; very environmentally friendly, perhaps, but not always conducive to good bowel function. Given everything they said, we were pretty sure Murphy was suffering from mild inflammatory bowel disease, which (after simple treatment to ex.