On Wed. I woke up to find that our 5 year old Rott had “wet the crate” overnight, something he has never done.

He was very lethargic and just laid around on the kitchen floor, refusing to eat or drink. His eyes and gums were very red, and he had a fever.

We went right to the vet and they did some blood work. The only thing wrong was that his white blood cell count was very high… everything else was within normal levels.

The vet feels that he has an infection of some sort and is treating him with antibiotics and a pain killer/fever reducer. He seems to be getting better, he ate some rice and chicken today and drank lots of water.
Of course the big worry is cancer. The vet was very confident that cancer would have caused additional deviations in his blood work, not limiting it to his white blood cell count.

All we can do right now is treat him for the possible infection and see how it goes. For those of you who have gone through cancer with your dogs, how did the blood work look in the beginning?

I’m at a loss as far as where the infection would have come from. We have had been inundated by these giant wood spiders lately… We also took him on a long hike three days prior at a state park.

Is it possible he has a tick disease? Ate a bad mushroom? West Nile?
If it is cancer I would use Indian Herb from http://www.lifelinewater.com. It can be taken internally or applied topically. It only kills cancer cells, not healthy tissue. If I thought there was a chance my dog had cancer I would give it as a precaution.
I would tell you what the ingredients are but the label on my vial has been smudged beyond hope of reading it. Zinc chloride and Chicory are two of the ingredients, I don't remember the rest of the herbs.
I've used it to get rid of 3 cancerous moles, with roots, on my husband who douses himself in herbicide and farms without a shirt (for 40 years). I took pictures of the Indian Herb in action on one of the cancer moles. PM if you want to see them.

My Greyhound was diagnosed with cancer in April, but it wasn't found with bloodwork; they found it on x-rays. It wasn't a quick, overnight thing, and he hasn't had a fever at all. This is my first dog with cancer so I don't know if this is typical or not. Aside from some initial discomfort at the tumor site he has had no other symptoms at all. He was not expected to live to see his birthday in August, and here it October and he's still doing quite well. I work for the Maya Ctr. for Integrated Medicine and so have access to many holistic treatments. My Greyhound has been given primarily immune-boosting supplements, and en experimental herb called Artemisinine that has been shown in some cases to prevent the spread of cancer cells. We deal with a lot of human cancer patients, and most of them feel fine before they are treated; it's the chemo that makes them feel sick and exhausted. In dogs it seems that cancer is usually discovered by some type of localized pain more than fever or nausea. Am I right, Connie?

Hopefully it's not cancer and just a bad infection. One of my last rotts was 8yr old when dianosed with cancer using both an x-ray and a ultrasound. Blood work wasn't done since the vet could see that he had a severe inner ear infection.

Hope your boy feels better soon.

My six-year-old Rott was PTS about two years ago due to bone cancer. There were no symptoms at all. It was discovered because he was on a jog with an ex when they stepped of a curb. When Chaos’ front right leg hit the ground, it shattered. Bone cancer. X-rays showed it was wide spread and he was unlikely to make it through the surgery to amputate the broken leg, and his back right was badly infected as well and would also have to be removed. That was a horrible day! Chaos didn’t make it home.

I tell it only because there were no symptoms at all, and it was pretty advanced. But like Peggy, no blood work was done, as the problem was very evident.

I wish you luck. I hope it is nothing more than an infection, for both of your sake.