Cooper's Page

Weight: 100
Breed: Bernese Mountain Dog
Age when diagnosed: 9

Tumors:

Cooper was and is my hero. I got Cooper when he was a small pup and I was a single grad student looking for a big silly dog to keep me company. We had so much fun with all of our hikes, snow shoeing, walks and road trips together.

Cooper was almost 9 years old when we found out he had bone cancer. He started limping for no reason. I thought it was arthritis acting up. When I brought him to the vet, she told us right away she thought it could be bone cancer in his rear left leg. The x-rays confirmed it… I cried a lot. That day we decided we were going to do everything we could to fight the cancer. We found a holistic vet and changed his diet, added herbs, supplements and also met with the oncologist and surgeon. Cooper was doing great with everything the holistic vet had us doing. He was no longer limping and was as happy and playful as ever. We decided against the amputation because of his size, age, arthritis and plain old clumsiness. Then one day after a walk he started to limp again. I thought he might have broken his leg. That night we decided to amputate (against everything our heart and gut was telling us).

When we got Cooper home from surgery it took 3-4 weeks before he would really eat again or wag his tail. Then about a week later his good back leg started to give out on him. The vets (3 different ones) thought it was a torn ACL. He continued to decline. About a week later it was confirmed that he was paralyzed from L4 down. He could no longer walk, sit up, or go to the bathroom on his own. We tried everything we could and finally he gave up, we could see it in his eyes. Just a little over 6 weeks from his amputation we had to say goodbye and send him on his way. My heart broke and is still breaking. I pray that you have met up with your friends and family over the rainbow and are running happy again on all 4 legs (just be careful not to trip running down any hills!).

Cooper was a true hero to us and gave us everything he had. We miss you and all of your silliness more than ever. I pray that we will meet up again and I can once again run beside you my friend.

Love always,
Lori, Dave, Connor, Ethan and Jazmine

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