Author of Help Your Dog Fight Cancer
My love for animals began when I was a toddler. My best friend was a Daschund called Woofie. My love for writing began in high school. I was the only one I knew who actually loved writing long papers.
I graduated college with a BA in literature, and earned a Masters degree in Counseling. But I decided I had taken the wrong fork in the road. I wanted to go to vet school, but I could not apply until I completed three animal pathobiology classes. I took them at UConn and an independent study course doing necropsies on farm animals. The next summer, I worked as a surgical assistant at a vet clinic, and in 1978 I was fired because I refused to dock and crop a Doberman Pinscher.
But my love of writing was calling me. For about a decade, I worked as a writer/producer of media for high school students. I was assigned such fascinating subjects as study skills, getting along with your parents, mastering algebra or geometry, and computer technology, and I did freelance jobs on the side.
Finally, the universe found a way to combine my love of animals and medicine, and my love of writing! I landed freelance jobs writing medical articles for animal magazines. In 1998, I became the Editor of Catnip, a news magazine from Tufts Vet School. While editor of Catnip, I helped launch a volunteer program at my local SPCA. And then the unthinkable happened.
Bullet Had Cancer
Bullet was diagnosed with lymphoma on July 17, 2000. He started chemo the very next day. Bullet’s oncologist urged me for a year to write this book. I did not want to write it—I really wanted someone else to write it! In 2002, when I found that there were still no such books, I wrote Help Your Dog Fight Cancer. The book has been so popular that I have released a second and a third edition.
Help Your Dog Fight Cancer
This award-winning book contains a ton of information you will need, but you will not find it anywhere else. I provide a lot of information that most veterinarians do not offer.
I love that this book is helping so many people and their dogs fight cancer. I hate that there are so many people who need the book. Order the book here.
Laurie Kaplan, Author of Help Your Dog Fight Cancer, lives in the suburbs of New York City with husband Mike, Puck (Pitbull/GSD mix), and Rip (Siberian husky). She loves writing, hiking, gardening, tennis, jigsaw puzzles and, of course, playing with the dogs.
Bullet's Story
In 1992, I adopted an 18-month-old Siberian husky at the local SPCA. Anyone who has ever lived with a Siberian will tell you that they are a big furry bundle of trouble. He was willful and ornery, smart and demanding. His primary objective in life is to escape and run free.
In July 2000, when he was 9 years old, Bullet was diagnosed with lymphoma. I was shocked to learn that my dog had cancer. I was terrified. I got him started in chemotherapy the next day, and set about learning all I could about caring for a dog with cancer. Then, I put together a great diet and a home care regimen for him.
Bullet was in a very small percentage of dogs to survive the disease. Bullet’s oncologist, Dr. Paolo Porzio, sent his patients with lymphoma to me to learn what I was doing for Bullet. It was at Dr. Porzio’s urging that I wrote the book Help Your Dog Fight Cancer.
Dogs Can Survive Cancer
Dogs with lymphoma generally survive 12-18 months, if the chemo protocol works. In November 2002, at the age of 11, Bullet was declared a lymphoma survivor. He had survived more than 2 years in remission.
For a minute, I believed that now he would survive forever.
I sort of forgot that even though a dog can survive cancer, he will still be taken away at some point. But when he had congestive heart failure, I remembered. I remembered that Bullet’s story would eventually come to an end, no matter what.
The prognosis for his heart disease was six months to a year survival. Bullet endured several more congestive heart failure episodes.
After a 4-year and 4-month remission from lymphoma, a 2-year survival with a deadly heart condition and 5 congestive heart failure episodes, Bullet’s vets named him “the Magic Bullet.”
Eventually, the Magic Bullet ran out of magic tricks. Bullet’s Story came to an end. He proved that dogs can survive cancer, but we could no longer avoid the inevitable. On November 20, 2004, at about 14 years old, Bullet’s kidneys failed and he went to the fabled Rainbow Bridge, still cancer-free.
Bullet was one shining moment that graced my life for 12 years, 2 months and a day. Bullet’s legacy is the Magic Bullet Fund. I ran this nonprofit for 20 years and provided financial assistance to 920 people who had dogs with cancer.
It has been years since Bullet went to the Rainbow Bridge, although it seems like just yesterday that I held him in my arms. Bullet is my guardian angel, my inspiration and my hero.
Every day I whisper to him:
I’m still holding you
Watch my tribute to Bullet: I'm Still Holding You