My Dog Has Good Cancer. (Yes, I Said That.)

Forty-eight hours after the diagnosis, I was sitting in an oncologist's office being told my dog had "good" lymphoma.

What? My dog has what?

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Good cancer. I turned those two words over in my head and — somehow — felt relieved. If you'd told me a week earlier that I'd ever be grateful for a type of cancer, I would have thought you'd lost your mind. And honestly, I kind of lost mine for a minute too.

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If you're joining mid-story — hi, I'm Kim. I have five Airedales, and the one who started all of this, including my brand Happy Aire, was Grover. Last month's newsletters cover his diagnosis and what I wish I'd known about checking lymph nodes. If you want the full picture, start there.

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So there we were, trying to absorb everything the oncologist was throwing at us. Treatment for dogs works a lot like it does for people — it depends on the type of cancer, the stage, overall health, and about a dozen other factors that were completely foreign to me at the time.

Then the doctor explained why Grover's diagnosis was, in their words, the better version.

Canine lymphoma comes in two main types: B-cell and T-cell. They're named for the type of white blood cell that turned cancerous. About two-thirds of dogs with lymphoma have B-cell, which tends to respond better to treatment and comes with longer remission times. T-cell is less common, more aggressive, and harder to treat. Vets have an old shorthand for it: B is better, T is tougher.

Grover had Stage 1 B-cell lymphoma.

That's what "good cancer" meant. Not that cancer is ever actually good. But when you're sitting across from an oncologist and you find out your dog has the more treatable version — with real options and real odds — you take it. You take it and you don't look back.

We spent a long time with Grover's doctor going through every treatment option, asking every question we could think of, and probably repeating a few of them. We went home with stacks of material and spread it all out at the kitchen table.

(A glass of wine is an excellent study partner, by the way.)

Grover Started on the Wisconsin Protocol

It's the most commonly used chemotherapy regimen for canine lymphoma. For dogs with B-cell lymphoma, it achieves remission in roughly 80–90% of cases.

Those numbers gave us something I hadn't felt since the initial diagnosis: HOPE.

And with that, our adventure began.

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I'm not a vet, so none of this is medical advice. I'm just sharing what we lived through and what I learned sitting in that chair, trying to keep up with scary words I'd never heard before.

If your dog has been diagnosed, talk to your vet about your specific options. The type matters. The stage matters. And the sooner you understand what you're dealing with, the clearer the path forward gets.

Next time, I'll tell you about the good, the bad, the ugly — and canned chicken.

(If you know, you know.)

— Kim Opdyke 💗