[00:00:00] >> James Jacobson: Today’s show is sponsored by The Dog Cancer Survival Guide, the best-selling book that helps you help your dog with cancer. Join the companion private support group at DogCancerSupport.com and get the email newsletter at DogCancerNews.com.
[00:00:19] >> Molly Jacobson: Well, it’s beneficial because if you go there and you use the search function, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of articles that have been written over the years that have, um, really, really great information in them.
There’s also thousands and thousands of comments on the blog from other people who have had dog cancer or asked questions.
[00:00:41] >> Announcer: Welcome to Dog Cancer Answers, where we help you help your dog with cancer. Here’s your host, James Jacobson.
[00:00:49] >> James Jacobson: Hello friend, and thank you for joining us today. Here at Dog Cancer Answers, we are celebrating.
This is going to be our 11th year, yes 11th year, of sharing dog cancer information with listeners just like you. And to celebrate today, I am joined by two of our team members: my wife, Molly Jacobson, who you may know, she is the editor of the bestselling book, The Dog Cancer Survival Guide, and our associate producer, Kate Basedow who’s also a licensed veterinary technician.
We’re going to discuss some of the best dog cancer resources available to you right now as we head into 2022. And to start off with guys, welcome. Thanks for being on the show.
[00:01:35] >> Kate Basedow: Thank you for having us.
[00:01:37] >> Molly Jacobson: Thank you for having us, Jim.
[00:01:38] >> James Jacobson: Let’s start with our first resource, DogCancerBlog.com, which has been around for a few years now. It is our oldest resource. Molly, why is that beneficial to our listeners?
[00:01:50] >> Molly Jacobson: Well, it’s beneficial because if you go there and you use the search function, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of articles that have been written over the years that have really, really great information in them. There’s also thousands and thousands of comments on the blog from other people who have had dog cancer or asked questions, and so there’s a lot of information in the comments. Now, I have, I have to caveat all of that with saying that the blog was started in 2007, so it’s gone through several iterations. And with hundreds and hundreds of articles, it might mean that some of the information, you know, kind of seems irrelevant, like oh, there’s a new webinar out on a topic that no longer matters. But in general, the highest search results are always going to turn out great information.
Everything’s categorized really well. So if you just go to the navigation menu and you look at the topic you’re interested in – for example, if you’re looking for articles on surgery, they’re all grouped together, then if you’re looking for articles on lymphoma, those are all grouped together. And if they overlap, they’ll be in both lists.
It’s just a really helpful site. It’s got links to many veterinarians. It’s got links to the information for our two main authors of The Dog Cancer Survival Guide, but there’s also posts on full spectrum vets who may be in your area who other readers have recommended as people who could help you with your dog.
[00:03:17] >> James Jacobson: Okay. And it’s again, constantly being updated, you work on that, Kate works in that, and we have other veterinarians joining that. Another resource that both of you are involved with is Dog Cancer Support. Kate, tell us about that.
[00:03:32] >> Kate Basedow: Dog Cancer Support is our Facebook support group, or at least currently hosted by Facebook.
You can access it by typing in your browser, DogCancerSupport.com. It is an ever-growing community of dog lovers, primarily who have dogs or had dogs who are diagnosed with cancer and just needed some support. So it’s a great place to go if you’re looking for some more information or just looking to share your story and your dog’s story with people who understand.
[00:04:03] >> James Jacobson: It’s a really vibrant community and there are people posting throughout the day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
[00:04:09] >> Kate Basedow: Oh, absolutely.
[00:04:10] >> James Jacobson: And it really is great to see. You don’t have to feel alone. Obviously cancer is unfortunately the number one killer of dogs in the United States and around the world, and this is a resource that you can turn to wherever you have Facebook and connect with other people who are going through this. And it’s a really helpful thing. Obviously we don’t have veterinarians on here, but we have a bunch of vet related people who kind of are just quietly there offering advice.
They can’t, you know, specifically speak to your own dog, but there’s a lot of really good resources. And so I really encourage you to check out DogCancerSupport.com. Another resource that we have is something that Molly touched on, which is the book itself, The Dog Cancer Survival Guide, which in many ways started this entire effort that we have.
Tell us about that book, and what are the plans for Dog Cancer Survival Guide?
[00:05:05] >> Molly Jacobson: Well, Dog Cancer Survival Guide, Dr. Demian Dressler started writing it in 2007, and that’s when we started the blog so he would have a place to sort of post online while he was writing. The first edition of the book came out in 2008. Dr. Susan Ettinger, who is an oncologist, joined Dr. Dressler soon after the first edition was published, actually just as a downloadable PDF, like way back in the early days, the first draft we actually thought was so important to get out to people that we sold it online as a downloadable PDF.
And then later we had Dr. Ettinger join us and we published the paperback, which is the edition that’s currently available. And we are working on an update to that second edition. There have been some things that we know more about now than we did for the second edition of the book that the vets want to clarify, and there’s a couple of other things that have been in use long enough, and they have enough clinical experience with, to really add into the book.
So the book as a publication can never contain everything dog cancer, because there’s too many types of dog cancers, and there’s too many rare things that happen to put it all in one book, and at 496 pages, we think it’s long enough. So the blog will always back up the book, and our weekly newsletters as well will bring you new information.
[00:06:31] >> James Jacobson: And that book is distinctive because it is the number one best selling animal health book in the English language. It’s been so popular over the years and it is considered the Bible of dog cancer. So if you don’t have a copy of it you can either buy it online, they’re online, you know, you can get it at Kindle for like $10, many, many, many libraries around the world have it.
And, uh, it is a well dog-eared book. And so if you don’t have The Dog Cancer Survival Guide, you should. Closely connected to all of this is a three times a week newsletter that we put out. It’s called Dog Cancer News, and you can find it at DogCancerNews.com. There is sort of a different editorial bent to each of the three newsletters that come out each week. Well, tell us about that.
[00:07:18] >> Molly Jacobson: So Tuesdays typically are around the podcast, which Kate is the producer for, associate producer for. And so that’s whatever’s new on our podcast. Thursdays are another usually scientific bent, something that’s interesting or important for people whose dogs have cancer to know. Saturdays tend to go a little lighter, be more about like recipes, sometimes just fun, like YouTube videos, like just something to brighten the mood a little bit.
It’s a tough thing to have a dog with cancer, as all of us know on this podcast. And so every once in a while, you need to remember that one of the treatments Dr. Dressler thinks is really important is life quality and making sure that you increase joy wherever you can. And so Saturday’s newsletters try to increase joy for all of us.
[00:08:10] >> James Jacobson: So let’s go back to the podcast. Kate, you have a bunch planned, and I want to hear a little bit about what is coming out in 2022.
[00:08:19] >> Kate Basedow: One of the first episodes that we’re going to be dropping for 2022 is an integrative oncologist panel discussion featuring Dr. Kendra Pope and Dr. Trina Hazzah, two of the four integrative oncologists in the US. They are both really wonderful people and a wealth of knowledge, so definitely check back for that episode. And we’re hoping to repeat that each year. And we’re also going to have plenty more question and answer episodes, including one on the topic of what are some natural options for different cancer treatments. And if you, as a listener, have questions that you would like answered and think might be beneficial to other listeners, you can always reach us on our Listener Line to leave a question that we might use in a future episode once one of our veterinarians answer it.
[00:09:14] >> James Jacobson: What’s that phone number?
[00:09:15] >> Kate Basedow: And that number is (808) 868-3200.
[00:09:22] >> James Jacobson: (808) 868-3200 And what is so wonderful about that is if you have a question that you really would like the answer to, you can call the Listener Line and it will be sent to one of our veterinarians and it may make it on a future episode of Dog Cancer Answers. It’s one of the types of shows that we really like to do, it’s very specific, but it can be very helpful for other people. So please take advantage of our Listener Line. And again, that number Kate?
[00:09:52] >> Kate Basedow: (808) 868-3200.
[00:09:55] >> James Jacobson: Awesome.
[00:09:56] >> Molly Jacobson: And Kate, even if someone doesn’t want to leave a voicemail, you’ll still take, uh, an email or they can contact us by email and give us questions that way or topic suggestions.
[00:10:06] >> Kate Basedow: Yeah, for sure. If you reach out to the Dog Podcast Network or reach out through the Dog Cancer Support Group, any way that you can reach us, if you have a question, we will absolutely include it if you’re a little bit recording shy.
[00:10:20] >> Molly Jacobson: Yeah. We can’t make any promises on when, but we’ll get it on the schedule.
[00:10:25] >> Kate Basedow: Absolutely.
[00:10:26] >> James Jacobson: One of the things that if you’re going through cancer treatment for your dog, you are thinking about, either on a conscious or subconscious level, is this can get awfully expensive. I know that firsthand because I recently, as in like this week, spent $2,000 at the veterinarian. And financials, when it comes to cancer, can be really, really difficult.
And we are doubling down on the resources that we have made available to you to help you with this burden. Molly, you want to talk about that?
[00:10:58] >> Molly Jacobson: Well, there’s a chapter in The Dog Cancer Survival Guide called Financial Resources. And because it’s such a critical issue for everybody dealing with dog cancer bar a few, I suppose there are some people who don’t have financial concerns, but for most of us, it’s something that you think about.
We actually put that on the blog as a standalone article. So it’s an excerpt from the book, but we put it on the blog – actually we put several chapters on the blog for free, so you can read them, the most important ones. And the financial resources article is there, but it doesn’t stay static as it was published in the paperback version.
Instead every few months I go in and make sure all the links work, if I hear about a new resource, I update it and add it to that article. So, um, when you’re on the blog, if you look under the articles section, and you’ll see the resources section, it says Financial Resources, and that is that article that is updated regularly to help you out.
[00:11:59] >> James Jacobson: And we have so much planned for 2022. Dr. Nancy Reese, who we have not mentioned, who is our medical editor at Dog Cancer Answers, is planning all sorts of stuff. We are working very hard behind the scenes for some really cool things to help you fight and perhaps even beat dog cancer, ’cause we are so committed to that. Our community is ever growing, and I want to encourage you if you haven’t already to really check out DogCancerSupport.com, which is that Facebook group. And you can find that either on Facebook or at DogCancerSupport.com. Kate, Molly, thank you for being with us today. I want to encourage you all to listen to the episode that Kate was talking about, the integrative oncology panel discussion.
We’ve been working on that for a while, and so many people are interested in looking at, we’ll say, outside the box treatment plans, and that’s what we discussed. It’s a really great show, and that is coming out in early January. Thank you so much for joining us today. I’m James Jacobson, on behalf of all of us here at Dog Podcast Network, I want to wish you and your dog a very warm, Aloha.
[00:13:13] >> Announcer: Thank you for listening to Dog Cancer Answers. If you’d like to connect, please visit our website at DogCancerAnswers.com or call our Listener Line at (808) 868-3200. And here’s a friendly reminder that you probably already know: this podcast is provided for informational and educational purposes only.
It’s not meant to take the place that the advice you receive from your dog’s veterinarian. Only veterinarians who examine your dog can give you veterinary advice or diagnose your dog’s medical condition. Your reliance on the information you hear on this podcast is solely at your own risk. If your dog has a specific health problem, contact your veterinarian.
Also, please keep in mind that veterinary information can change rapidly. Therefore, some information may be out of date. Dog Cancer Answers is a presentation of Maui Media in association with Dog Podcast Network.
