PULLMAN, Wash. — Veterinarians at Washington State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital say a rare surgery helped give a dog battling bone cancer a new ‘leash’ on life.
Vets removed nine-year-old Calvin’s scapula — his shoulder blade —along with all traces of his tumor while keeping his leg intact and functional. Nearly a year later—the university says Calvin is thriving.
“He’s over nine years old now, and that’s getting up there for a Doberman, but he’s still cancer-free and happy,” his owner Brenda Adams said in a news release. “We couldn’t ask for anything more.”
WSU says Calvin first showed symptoms in March of 2024, about two months after Adams had taken him in from a family member who could no longer care for Calvin.
“We had only had him a very short time, but we fell in love with him,” Adams said. “He is the best dog — just a big, fun, goofy guy. Everybody who meets him just loves him.”
WSU says Adams took Calvin to the vet when he started limping; she assumed he had something in his paw. It turns out, he had osteosarcoma, a deadly and aggressive bone cancer in his left shoulder. The standard treatment would have been amputating his entire leg, but WSU says because of a prior hip injury, that was not an ideal option for Calvin.
Calvin was diagnosed by his veterinarian at a local clinic in Walla Walla. WSU says Adams sought treatment from a holistic veterinarian in Seattle, but the cancer wasn’t going away. That’s when her vet encouraged her to talk with the team at WSU.
WSU’s surgical team proposed removing the tumor by performing a scapulectomy — a procedure in which only the shoulder blade is removed. WSU says the surgery has rarely been performed at at the university – let alone other places.
WSU says Calvin was slow to use his leg again after the procedure, but another pet helped to motivate him.
“My mom’s cat would walk past our sliding glass door, and Calvin loved to bark and jump around at it,” Adams said. “One day, we noticed he was using that leg like crazy as he tried to chase after the cat. After that, he started using it more.”
Now, Calvin is left with only a large scar as a reminder of his tumor.
WSU says after undergoing five rounds of chemotherapy and regular doses of the Yale vaccine — an experimental immunotherapy designed to treat certain types of canine cancer — Calvin has remained cancer-free.