This weekend, pet lovers can give dogs battling cancer a new ‘leash’ on life.
The event
Sunday, May 4, is the annual ‘Wag Love Life Walk and Run’ in Redmond.
It raises money for the Canine Cancer Alliance to help fund research and enroll pets in clinical trials.
“We all want better therapies for dogs,” Founder of Canine Cancer Alliance Mari Maeda told KIRO 7 News. “We all love dogs here in the Pacific Northwest, so why don’t we have better treatments? Why don’t we have clinical trials, so each dog has a chance at a cure?”
The event begins at 10 a.m. at Marymoor Park.
Registration opens at 9 a.m.
It costs $35 to register online and $40 to register in person on the day of the event.
There will be a number of contests and prizes that participants can win.
“We are encouraging everybody to register and show up and support the cause so we can continue to support clinical trials and help dogs here in the Pacific Northwest,” Maeda told KIRO 7.
If you’re interested in joining the ‘Wag Love Life Walk and Run,’ you can sign up by clicking here.
Everyone is welcome – including your dog – just make sure they are on a leash.
Canine Cancer Alliance
Mari Maeda founded the Canine Cancer Alliance in 2017. For years, she led research initiatives at DARPA, the R&D arm of the Department of Defense. After losing all three family dogs to cancer, she switched her focus to canine cancer research.
“I was just frustrated with today’s therapies,” Maeda told KIRO 7. “We’re just relying on surgery, radiation, chemotherapy. They don’t work well, side effects are awful, so I started the foundation to try to raise funds, support researchers and clinicians, and vets so we can have clinical trials, so we can have safe and effective treatments for dogs with cancer.”
When she first moved to Seattle, Maeda said clinical trials for dogs were limited. It’s something she felt passionate about and wanted to change.
“We’ve been talking to different universities, companies— we’ve talked to hundreds, and we are supporting dozens and dozens of projects right now,” Maeda told KIRO 7. “But the project that’s furthest along, is led by a professor at Yale University School of Medicine.”
Yale Canine Cancer Vaccine
A Yale researcher by the name of Dr. Mark Mamula developed a vaccine that can slow – and in some cases halt – certain cancers in dogs.
“Usually, you think of a vaccine as something that prevents disease, but this vaccine is a therapeutic vaccine,” Maeda told KIRO 7. “So it can actually stop cancer from metastasizing and spreading and even reversing in some cases the metastasis.”
It’s being tested in 10 clinics in the United States and one in Canada.
Two testing locations are in Washington:
- Bridge Animal Referral Center (BARC) in Edmonds
- Washington State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Pullman
The trials are focused on three types of cancer:
- Osteosarcoma (bone cancer)
- Hemangiosarcoma (develops in the lining of blood vessels)
- Transitional cell carcinoma (develops in the cells lining the urinary tract, including the bladder, urethra, and ureters.)
According to Cancer Canine Alliance, pet owners can still enroll their dogs in these trials. To learn how and read more about the experimental vaccine, click here.
Success story from a pet owner
KIRO 7 spoke to a pet owner who signed her dog up for the trial after learning he had bone cancer. Rainier was given only months to live. Two years later, he’s happy and healthy. To read Rainier’s story, you can click here.
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