When Mike and Lois Wirtel woke one Saturday morning to find their dog’s neck swollen behind his ears, they thought something must have bitten him. After all, Moses, a six-year-old black Labrador retriever, spent most of his time outside—chasing squirrels and playing with his three canine siblings on the Wirtels’ rural land outside of Moscow Mills, Mo.
“LAB” ANIMAL
So they were shocked when their veterinarian told them Moses’s swollen neck was probably a sign of cancer. Like many owners of the approximately 4 million dogs diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. each year, the Wirtels were given two options: treat Moses’s symptoms and keep him comfortable or take a biopsy, confirm the diagnosis, and treat him with one of the few cancer drugs available for dogs.
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