Ravenwood Kennel: Mushing the Western U.P.: The Big C

We had our first official dog casualty due to cancer this week. Its kind of a long story that ended abruptly on Tuesday.
Shyboy, one of our consistant, hardest pulling wheel/team dogs got into an arguement with one of his kennel mates about a month and a half or so ago. He was injured on one of his front legs, fairly badly, but we've seen worse. At first, it seemed like he'd nurse it back okay himself- no significant swelling, he was keeping it pretty clean, but it seemed like it was taking awhile to heal. As kennel owners, we feel fairly good at judging the need for vet care. We do as much as we can ourselves, in order to keep the bills to a minimum, as well as the stress for the dogs.
Then he missed his first meal. He never missed a meal. So we decided it was due to the leg injury and we brought him into the house and cleaned and dressed the wound. He was a great patient. Only tried once to remove the bandage and then left it alone. He started eating again the next meal, maybe not with the usual gusto that he was accustomed, but we figured that was because of the change of being indoors when he wasn't used to it. Looking back, it did take two weeks or so for the wound to seem healed enough to go back outside, but we really didn't realize how long it was. He was eating pretty good all this time.
We finally decided it was time for him to go back out to the dogyard because he was getting no exercise and his wound was fairly covered over with new tissue. Then he started turning away from meals pretty regularly, and eating very slowly when he would eat at all. We thought that maybe it was because he was mad he wasn't getting the extra attention that he had been. He had no diarrhea, no vomiting, wasn't running a temperature. Any one of these symptoms would have really thrown up a red flag, and he was still eating, just not the way he used to. During this time, about a monthlong span, we had some pretty hot weather, and he was one of our heaviest coated dogs, so we tried to tell ourselves that it was the heat that was bothering him.
For the last week or so, he would only eat if we doctored his food up-a little canned food mixed in, maybe an egg. Then he went two days straight without eating anything. Time for a visit to the vet. That was on Friday. We got the news that we were both, by now, fearing. He had a cancerous mass in his abdomen. We think it involved his kidneys, and all we could do was take him home and keep him comfortable. We didn't want to have his last experience be that vet visit. He was so scared there that he bit one of the assistants. He was not the type to do that unless he was terrified. Poor Shyboy. So we brought him home and spent the weekend with him, took him out to the woods one last time to run loose and enjoy himself. We couldn't persuade him to eat anything, but we think he had a good last few days. Something better for him to know and us to remember than a vets office. He passed away on Tuesday, July 12, 2011. He will be very missed.