An update to a previous story about the effort to find a cure for cancer in animals.

Last season we met Blizzard, a five-year-old Pyrenean mountain dog who was being treated for bone cancer. Despite undergoing radiation and chemotherapy, his cancer spread -- and sadly, he had to be put down.

To honour his memory, the Ontario Veterinary College is using Blizzard as the “poster dog” to raise funds for the Pet Trust Fund. That way, Blizzard can help to find a cure for cancer in animals and humans.

Last season's story below.

Better nutrition, hygiene and preventive medical care mean that most of us are living longer. But as we age, we are more likely to fall victim to cancer. In fact, the World Health Organization predicts cancer will become the world's number one killer by 2010.

So researchers everywhere are scrambling to find new ways of diagnosing, treating and, ultimately, finding a cure for this deadly disease.

At the Ontario Veterinary College -- part of the University of Guelph and one of the top centres for training veterinarians and treating animals in the world -- experts are exploring new ways of looking at cancer in humans by comparing its effect on domestic pets.

They've set up the Institute for Comparative Cancer Investigation, the only one of its kind at a Canadian university.

"It's a University of Guelph wide institute," says the co-director, Professor Paul Woods.

"The thinking there is we've got a bunch of researchers here at the Ontario Veterinary College but we also have researchers at other areas of the University of Guelph such as in biochemistry such as in nutrition such as in the agricultural college and the bioscience college."

One of those researchers is Professor Brenda Coomber, who runs the Institute for Comparative Cancer Investigation with Professor Woods.

She's been studying cancer in humans for almost 20 years and realized the potential of looking at the pets who share our lives.

"They're patients with four legs instead of two," says Professor Coomber. "And secondly, which is more of a scientific advantage I suppose, is that these cancers arise in dogs and cats over years. We think they're driven by the sorts of genetic changes that affect humans and lead to cancer. And so they're much more complicated tumors. They're much more like we would encounter in a clinical setting with humans."

Researchers are finding that looking at naturally occurring cancer in pets may be more useful for some types of the disease than using animals in a lab.

"I think rodents and mice and lab animals for cancer may help with some of the mechanisms," says Professor Woods. "But it's a pretty artificial type of model where you've taken the mouse, you give them one type of cancer and you know what's going to happen in them. "Ours, unfortunately, are more likely to be more like you and I because these are cats and dogs living in our environment. They spontaneously arise, meaning the cancer just occurred, just like it would in you and I."

Studies that help dogs also help humans

One type of the disease Professor Woods and his team are looking at is bone cancer in dogs -- what doctors call osteosarcoma.

"Osteosarcoma in dogs is very similar to osteosarcoma in people," says Professor Sarah Boston, a cancer surgeon who heads up the study. "They're both a good model for each other. Studies that come out that help dogs can actually translate to help people and vise versa."

Probably the most famous case of bone cancer in humans was Terry Fox. His struggle with the disease is honoured every year in marathons all over Canada to raise money for research.

"Some of the work that's been done in dogs has actually trickled over towards people," says Professor Woods. "Such as the fact that Terry Fox had his leg amputated which is still our standard of care for dogs."

Amputations may stop the spread of cancer in a dog or human, but not always, as in the case of Terry Fox. Sometimes the cancer has already spread to other parts of the body. That spread varies from case to case, so Professor Boston tracks the progress of the disease through a process called Staging.

"Staging is basically to answer the question, where else is the cancer?" says Professor Boston. "It looks at how big the tumor is itself, but also looking at, has it spread to other organs or other parts of the body? If we're talking about bone cancer, bone cancer tends to go to the lungs and to other bones in the body. That's where we focus our staging tests to look for what we call gross disease, or a tumor that you can see on those tests."

One aim of the testing is to find alternatives to cutting off a limb.

"We're not just helping to save an animal, says Professor Woods. "We're trying to give the pets a pretty good quality of life. This is somebody's family member, and so for that we would try just as hard, hopefully, as they would for you and I if we were in the same situation."

Alternatives to amputation include radiation and chemo-therapy, treatments the Ontario Veterinary College can offer at its hospital. It's a sophisticated place, using the same types of equipment you would find in a human cancer care facility, such a MRIs, CT-scans and a cobalt radiation unit that came from Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital.

It's expensive treatment -- up to $5,000 and sometimes even more -- that pet owners have to pay themselves.

"Mostly our Ontario Veterinary College is self funding," says Professor Woods. "So our probably our charges would be similar to what they would see in their own primary practice. There are some differences, though, just like in people that they have clinical trials for people with cancer. We also have some clinical trials here for pets with cancer."

That means that some of the extra tests needed for comparative studies are paid for by the OVC, but owner like Craig Sibley is only too happy to have his five year-old Pyranean Mountain Dog, Blizzard, involved in the research.

"They told us about the program when we got here," says Craig. "It's not a treatment program. It's a staging and diagnosis program, so they can learn how to better diagnose the disease and monitor the different stages with treatment and progress."

The staging process found cancer in one of Blizzard's leg, but they also found it had spread to another leg, so amputation was not an option. Instead, Blizzard gets radiation, not just to slow the spread of the disease, but also to control pain. And like many humans with cancer, Blizzard gets chemotherapy. But unlike humans, most animals don't lose their hair.

"It's usually because their hair cycle, unlike you and I, is going through more of a continuous cycle," says Professor Woods. "We are going to get some of the other signs, though, that you might get in people, which would be hitting rapidly dividing cells, say, in the intestinal tract/ So we may get some vomiting and some diarrhea. Probably in about 10 to 15 per cent of our cases will have that. However, we've got some medications to try and decrease the likelihood of nausea or vomiting and we help them through that."

Blizzard's side effects are under control, but the treatment he receives buys time and could give him extra months, even years of life.

"He's a member of the family," says Craig. "And much loved, so we'd like to give him the best chance that we can."

Blizzard is doing his bit for research, helping to find new ways of treating and curing human cancers as well as his own. He may have a dog's life, but he's part of the Sibley family and he's helping their lives too.