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Rottweiler Health Foundation Mission Statementimage: Trotting Rottweiler

To raise money to fund critical research into the genetic, communicable and acquired diseases that plague our beloved breed, the Rottweiler.

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Winter 2008
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SHARED REAL STORIES

My Rottweiler 'Gunnar'
Dealing with Leiomyosarcoma
Submitted by The Senners on October 31, 2004
image: Rottweiler at Rainbow Bridge We are located in Seattle, Washington and we had the pleasure and enjoyment of the most wonderful male Rottweiler named Gunnar.  We had never owned a Rottweiler and must say because of all the stories we had heard about them we were very skeptical of buying one.  So one day we went to the AKC show in Seattle to be greeted with a room full of Rotties licking, leaning and stealing our hearts, so we purchased the most adorable male 12- week old pup, named him Gunnar and our life began.
We all went to training, not sure who trained who, but we certainly learned the pecking order; my husband, Gunnar, then me. I was told from the beginning to crate train him.   He would cry and bark and I thought it was cruel, so I let him have the run of our home while we were at work -- that was a mistake, because no matter how many toys or nylabones he had, he liked our woodwork best, so he then became confined to a large laundry room, which he proceeded to chew the walls and all the woodwork.  But I must say by the time he turned two his brain engaged and he stopped!

Gunnar had his chores he loved to do, he would bring in the paper, the mail and take the empty milk carton to the recycle bin, he loved to be told he was a good boy, and he loved his treats.  Gunnar had the biggest personality, when you walked into our home, you would pay attention to him, you would pet him and he made it known that you would.  He was loved by everyone.

Then one Sunday at five years old, Gunnar became very ill.  We rushed him to the vet and they put him on IV's for the night and the next morning began running blood tests -- nothing showed up, except peritonitis, at that time our vet called in a surgeon and they operated on Gunnar.  We got the call three hours later that he had removed a 10" x 10" 3 lb. tumor and it was Leiomyosarcoma Cancer.  My vet went to his medical journal and told me that this type of cancer was normally only found in old dogs and not a dog of  five years old.  I was then informed that chemo was not a solution.  The only thing we could hope for was that because the tumor was contained that they got it all and it was a 'wait-and-see.'  He could give us no time frame.  So after three days we took Gunnar home.  I then went to the Health Food Store, buying everything I could that they give cancer patients to build him back up and gave Gunnar lots of love and we prayed a lot.

Two years later he again became ill again.  We again had surgery done and this time he was full of tumors (30+) they could only remove 5 of them as the others were attached to major organs,  so we took him home to love and enjoy every day we had left with him.  That was Labor Day of 2003 and he started failing two days before Christmas - so we all had the best Christmas we could with lots of gifts, and toys.  Two days after Christmas we had to make that dreadful decision to let Gunnar go to Rainbow Bridge.  It was the hardest thing that my husband and I have ever had to do --it tore our hearts out.  And I must say I was very angry that Gunnar got dealt this hand -- he was full of life and love and dedication, and did not get to enjoy a long or healthy life.  But he did have a lot of love and he knew we had done everything we could for him and would have done more if we could have.

We laugh daily about the funny things that Gunnar would do, and how he owned the house and we just paid the mortgage.  We are now at the point where we are going to start looking for another male Rottweiler to help fill our void.

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