Remove lump or not?

[Medievalist]

12.5 year old Labrador has a lump under her tail. About the size of a grape. Biopsy says it doesn't seem to be cancerous, but lab say can't be 100% sure without the lump being removed and sent to them for analysis.

What would you do? Risk an anaesthetic or just leave it? She has been getting al LOT of attention back there from other dogs ☹️

This will sound weird but I would get the lump removed. My last dog suddenly started getting a lot of attention from a particular dog when he was 10. I didn't think anything of it - it was a tad annoying for my dog (especially as the owner said her dog never reacted to any other dogs like this). When he was 11, he suddenly collapsed and sadly had to be PTS. The vet said he was riddled with cancer and didn't know how he was still going - he had honestly shown no symptoms other than slowing down a tiny bit. I felt so guilty. It was only afterwards it struck me that the annoying dog must have been able to smell the cancer.

You could do a blood screen initially to assess your dogs general health and liver and kidney function which would help you with deciding on how risky the anaesthetic would be. Have you discussed your concerns regarding the anaesthetic with your vet?

Oh yes she's had her six monthly blood test and all is in order. Vet says it's up to us. I'm just a bit uneasy about the attention it's getting from other dogs - as MrsZola says, can they smell cancer.

I'd be inclined to remove it as well. Our springer started getting a lot more attention from dogs when we were out, and our other dog started being very protective of her and warning them off her. She seemed to be in perfect health apart from a sore shoulder that the vet said was arthritis, but when it didn't improve and they x-rayed it, she had what turned out to be a very aggressive cancer in both shoulder-blades and we lost her three days after diagnosis.

I would have it removed. Anaesthetics these days are very safe, even for older animals. There's not a lot of spare skin on the tail to bring back together after a lump removal, and any suspect lump needs quite a large margin to ensure complete removal, if it gets bigger it will be much more difficult to remove.

Thanks for advice everyone. We're going to go ahead and have it removed. 🤞

That sounds like a sensible decision. Hope it goes well!

Good luck.

Hope the op goes well