Help Sausage the pug beat cancer

Justin and I are fundraising for cancer treatment for our dog, Sausage. We adopted Sausage in June 2021 and he has made his way directly into our hearts. About a month after we adopted him, he had a lump in his mouth biopsied and we learned it was an aggressive oral melanoma. Although we have not had Sausage for very long, we decided we are going to spend what it costs to aggressively treat his cancer and give him the best shot at a good life with us. We want to tell you a little bit about Sausage and why he is so special.

All about Sausage

We have pieced together a good amount of information about Sausage's life. He is 12 years old, and we think he was born in California. His first owners were a girl and her mom, and they named him Buster Prince. The girl came to visit her stepfather in Michigan in about 2015, and left Sausage behind forever when she went back to California. That was Sausage's first big heartbreak in life.

Fortunately, Sausage's new owner, Steve* bonded with him, nicknamed him Sausage, and best of all introduced Sausage to his two best dog friends, Steve's dogs Sasha and Paco. Sausage, Paco, and Sasha did everything together, and with Steve, they were a happy family. Sadly, Sasha and Paco both passed away in 2019, which broke both Steve and Sausage's hearts. Sausage was so lonely and Steve did not know how to help him, feeling the same way. Sausage became sad and withdrawn.

Steve eventually decided to get two new dogs to try to fill the void. Unfortunately, the new dogs did not get along with Sausage. In February 2021, one of the dogs attacked Sausage, mauling his face so badly that he lost three teeth. After another attack, Steve decided to give Sausage a new home with Amy,* who had just one other dog and a young daughter who adored Sausage.

Amy and her daughter gave Sausage all the love they could but Amy's life was hectic as a single mother running her own business and buying her own home for the first time. She found herself keeping Sausage in a crate all day, which she knew was not fair to him. She had also noticed a weird growth starting in his mouth but could not afford the vet care he needed. Amy knew she had to find a new home for Sausage but was terrified to take him to a shelter given his age, his history, and his sensitive nature.

Amy decided to talk to my sister, Annette, who has spent years in dog rescue. Annette knew Justin and I had two pugs, one of which was also a senior rescue dog, and she wondered if we might have room for one more...

*Names changed to give these people their privacy.

About Liz and Justin's family

Justin and I are public interest lawyers with a pug obsession. Justin's obsession started as a child when he met an adorable black pug. He knew then that when he grew up he had to have one, and as soon as he finished law school he found Zelda, the pug who started it all. Justin and Zelda spent a couple of happy years together, and then Justin met me while we were both working in a legal aid office. We began dating, moved in together, got married, and bought a house, which had the perfect fenced yard for Zelda to run and play in - a must on our home shopping list.

After the pandemic started, I realized it was time for us to adopt another dog. We had talked about it for a long time, but the time had never been right - we were working on home renovations, then I lost my job, then I started my own law firm, then Justin started a new job and began traveling a lot more for work, etc. In April 2020, a friend posted a picture on Facebook of the most bereft looking senior pug stuck at a shelter in the Detroit area. "WE HAVE TO SAVE HIM!!!" I said. I called the rescue that had taken him in, which was coincidentally run by another lawyer, and told her all about our love for pugs, our home, and what we could offer the old man. The rescue said yes, so we went to meet our new family member - Professor Hubert Farnsworth (we call him Bert).

Bert was the perfect addition to our family. He has just about every physical ailment an elderly pug could have - he's blind, deaf, and diagnosed with pug myelopathy, which makes it hard for him to use his back legs. But he is the happiest, most loving and snuggly guy you could ever meet, and he and Zelda bonded immediately. We learned everything we could about how to support his health needs and once things started to open back up, we started him in physical therapy and acupuncture to keep him as strong as possible.

About a year later, in spring 2021, Justin's mom Lynn's name was coming up on the waitlist for a breeder who was going to have a black pug available. Sadly, Justin's parents' prior black pug, Murphy, had died, leaving just his sister, fawn pug Jojo, alone, so they had decided to get a new puppy to replace him. While they were waiting for the black pug, they decided to adopt a shar pei, Bubba. Bubba, it turned out, was a handful, and Lynn was not sure they should still adopt the pug. So she asked us if we might want him.

Justin and I spent a long time thinking about it and eventually we decided to do it. We had not really wanted to go with a breeder for another dog, but we also knew that there are benefits to getting a dog as a puppy and being able to train and love them from the very start. We also knew Lynn was going to be heartbroken if she did not get to be grandma to a baby pug (we will not be providing grandkids...).

So in June 2021, we were a happy foursome waiting for our little black pug bundle of joy to arrive in August when Annette called me about Sausage. Of course, we said yes. We didn't know much about him other than that he had been in a home where he was being attacked and Amy could not keep him. But Justin is what I call a "pug guy" and we knew we could make the room in our home and our hearts for one more.

Sausage came to live with us and fit in right away. He is a sweet, laid back guy who likes his space and respects other dogs. He is the easiest walker and car rider we have ever met. His favorite things to do are lounge in the sun, get into a licking battle with a Kong, sleep under whatever furniture is available, and eat - and does he LOVE to eat. This dog loves everything. Dog food, chicken, steak, even vegetables. He wants it all. He is a shy guy, probably because of everything he has been through, but once he warms up to you, his tail goes wild when he gets his butt scratched. And he has the deepest, kindest brown eyes.

In August, the final member of our pack was ready to join us - the exuberant ball of energy who we call Mr. Tiny or Little Guy. Our family was complete.

Sausage's health journey

When we got Sausage, he had not been neutered, so that was something we knew we wanted to do right away. We met with our vet who told us he did not have a microchip, so we decided to get that as well, and we learned that his airway was being partially blocked by excess soft palate tissue, which was making it hard for him to breathe, especially when he was hot, so that needed to be removed. Our vet also recommended that we have her remove and do a biopsy of the lump in his mouth - it could be benign, but it might be cancerous, and either way it was not doing him any favors. We scheduled surgery for July and got the results of the biopsy in early August - it was cancer and it was a melanoma, which is the fastest and most aggressive kind. Even more scary was that the mass in his mouth grew back quickly - by September, his mouth looked as bad as it had in July before the surgery.

Our wonderful vet talked us through our options, and I spent a lot of time researching and thinking about the ethics of how aggressively to treat cancer in an animal that would not understand why it was being put through a painful healing process. Justin had done a lot of that kind of thinking earlier on, having had pets his whole life, and together we decided that we wanted to at least meet with an oncologist to find out what the treatment options were - if there were any - and talk with them about the pros and cons of treatment for Sausage.

Sausage's oncology appointment was on Thursday, September 23, 2021 at Oakland Veterinary Referral Service (OVRS) in Bloomfield, Michigan. OVRS is a full service, 24-hour emergency vet, and they have a number of specialists, including oncologists. It was hard for us to get an appointment anywhere for a long time because vets are so overwhelmed right now, but we were luckily paired with an amazing vet at OVRS.

The OVRS vet and her team had done a thorough review of Sausage's medical history, which had included records from his prior vet, which indicated that he had had severe, stage 3-4 periodontal disease for at least three years. This is likely what took most of his teeth and is also likely what caused his cancer. We don't think Sausage ever had any dental care unfortunately. We decided to move forward with a CT scan so that the vet would have as much information as possible in order to give us the best possible treatment advice.

Our vet staged Sausage as stage 3 and provided us with the following treatment plan: she recommended that Sausage immediately start on the Oncept vaccine, a fairly new treatment for melanoma in dogs which is minimally invasive but which has had really promising results. Oncept requires four vaccinations every two weeks, then one vaccination every six months thereafter. Additionally, our vet recommended surgery on Sausage's jaw in order to remove both the mass and the underlying bone where the cancer had spread. By some miracle, the CT scan showed definitively that the cancer had not spread to Sausage's lungs - something that was reasonably likely and which would have meant that he was past the point where treatment would help.

Justin and I talked together and we talked with our vet. "I want to make the best decision for him. I want to know if the risk of pain is going to outweigh the benefits,” I told our vet. Our vet said this was a difficult choice that many families face, and that she could not make for us. However, she said, because Sausage had already learned how to compensate so thoroughly due to the mass in his mouth, and because he had bounced back immediately from his prior surgery - he was eating again the same day - she felt that surgery would not be as difficult for him as it would be for other dogs. Plus, he had probably been in pain for so long due to his infected mouth, that the recovery from surgery may not be all that different from his day to day life. The recovery time is a couple of weeks. And then, when it's all over, he will finally be pain free.

The final barrier was the cost. So far, we had already spent $4000 ($1000 for the initial surgery in July and another $3000 for the appointment with OVRS which included his CT scans and his first Oncept injection). Surgery was going to cost another $4000, and then there were also the future Oncept injections at $650 each.

We did not have to spend much time thinking about it. I had been deeply considering what Sausage's life had been like until he got to us - filled with moments of joy and hope but pervasively sad, with many abandonments and losses. I also kept thinking about what an impression he makes on everyone who meets him - it's really special, and not something that we experience with our other dogs. Everyone who meets Sausage - friends, our various vets and their staff, people on the street - comment on how sweet he is and how much they love him. At our home vet's office, every time we go in there with any of our dogs, they ask, "How's Sausage?" We have four pugs - he's the only one they ask about.

This is a dog who has had twelve hard years. He is a brave, stoic, good boy, and we want to give him the best shot we can at a loving, stable, pain free retirement. Not letting cancer take him now after everything he has been through - when there's a possibility that we can buy him at least another year - seems like the only choice.

Why we are asking for money

So, like I mentioned, we are both public interest lawyers. Justin works as a labor representative for a nurses union, and I have my own law firm focused on education, employment, and sexual harassment related law - and I take many cases either at a reduced rate, pro bono, or on contingency. We do what we do because we love it and because it's important, and while we are doing OK, we don't have savings. With a mortgage, a car payment, the financial impact of my unexpected job loss and starting my own business, the pandemic, and six figure student loans, we are going to be putting the majority of Sausage's care on our credit cards.

We know there are a lot of people out there who love Sausage and are rooting for him. While we take full financial responsibility for our decision, we would love to have help with this, and we know there are people out there who will want to help.

FAQs

Q: Are you seriously spending $10,000 on a dog?

A: Yes.

Q: What if you don't need all the money and you have some left?

A: We won't - see calculations above. If we do for some reason get a super cheap surgery, and we somehow get all of this money donated, we will use any extra to go towards Bert's therapy.

Q: What do I get for my donation?

A: Good karma/juju/vibes/whatever.

Q: Is my donation tax deductible?

A: No.

Q: I have other commentary I would like to provide about the fact that you are seriously putting $10,000 on your credit card for a dog that might just die anyway.

A: I would like you to go eat a butt sandwich with a side of butt.