Experienced dog owners, Vet Techs Please Help! Dog health issue. (growth on lips has changed colors.) no vet?
Question by Becky Brown: Experienced dog owners, Vet Techs Please Help! Dog health issue. (growth on lips has changed colors.) no vet?
Most of this question is her backround and explaining the lump. The last part of it is the questions.
I have a almost 7 year old Shih Tzu. She has had various lumps in her life from Cysts, scar tissues and skin tags and warts. She has had them since she was a puppy. And she has had at least 20+ lumps in her lifetime. She is healthy though! None of the lumps have ever caused a problem, never been a concern and never required any treatment. She currently has one skin tag (on her nipple) and 2 or 3 cysts on various parts of her body. The cysts will sometimes get bigger but they will go away eventually. They can take weeks or months for them to go away. She has had various cysts on her eyelids all of which have gone away. Again, all of her various lumps and cysts have always gone away, never required treatments and the Vets have never been concerned by them. All of her lumps in her lifetime have been a pinkish/whitish in color and never changed colors.
Now she has this small lump in between her nose and lip. It appears to either be a wart or a skin tag. That area by her mouth and nose the skin color is black there. And the wart was black. I noticed last night that the wart is now a pinkish color. This lump is Very small and from what I can tell has not grown at all in size. I first noticed this lump at least 1-2 years ago. Again it hasn’t changed in size. I wasn’t concerned about, I had just assumed that she had been born with it. She also has lot of the exact same thing on her chin but they are smaller, been there her whole life and again black in color (skin on her chin is black.)
She is eating, drinking, acting ok. No vomiting, diarrhea, her temp is around 101. Which is kinda high for her but she was sleeping on a heated pad so…. She is acting completely fine no changes in her behavior at all. Still hyper and happy! No appetite loss. And she has not lost any weight either.
Everywhere I have been reading (including here) it says any time a growth changes in color or apperance to be checked by a Vet. Obviously. But my parents won’t take her to the Vet. They say that I am over reacting and that she is just fine and that the growth doesn’t look serious. I spent the entire day yesterday trying to convince them to no avail. They said when she goes in to the vet in a couple of months for a heartworm test that they will have her checked then but in the meantime do not worry about it. I just don’t think they want to take her in because she has had so many lumps in her life and they always turn out to be nothing.
She doesn’t have any symtoms of cancer. (except of course the change in color.) And I have read up on various types of canine skin cancer and none of them sound like what she has. The closest thing I could come up with what she had was either a wart or a skin tag. Again in hasn’t changed in size or anything just the color has changed from black to pinkish color.
I know you guys aren’t Vets and I know that you obviously can’t see her. But I would apperciate if you could take your best *guess* and suggest things.
Questions:
Does this sound like cancer to you?
If this is cancer, and say she goes to the Vet today and they would obviously remove it but then what? Would she have to go through chemo? What do you think her prognosis would be? I know people who have had skin cancer and they get it removed and that’s it. Nothing else. Again this is on the outside of her body. It is NOT under her skin.
And besides cancer do you have any other suggestions as to what this could be?
Thanks in advance!
And sorry I keep asking this question!
Also I am going to keep trying to get my parents to take her in.
The money isn’t the reason that they aren’t taking her in. As I would be the one paying for the Vet visit anyways. (BTW it’s over $ 100 at our vet.) It’s because the closest vet is an 1 1/2 one way. And while I would also be paying for the gas to get there and back. I don’t yet have a license and they don’t want to spend 3 hours traveling time. I don’t have anyone else to take me. Trust me if this was my decision or I had a license or someone to take me the dog would have been at the Vet’s yesterday. This is our closest vet to where we live.
I finally convinced my parents to take her in! They are going to call the Vet up and tell them about it and see what they think, and if they say bring her in, they will. And I am assuming that they will tell us to bring her in. So.
Also this growth that she has is *very* small. I don’t know if they will be able to do a fine needle aspirate. If they can, it will probably be pretty hard, but we will see. At least she is going to get it checked out pretty soon!
Best answer:
Answer by BunnuvaSitch
Offer to pay the exam fee to take the dog in to the vet. It shouldn’t be much… $ 50 maybe? Getting a real answer from a real professional is the only way to go in this situation. Guesses from strangers online won’t do you any good.
ADD: Sorry you’re in the predicament you’re in. I still maintain that guesses from strangers aren’t going to help the situation. Looks like you’ll just have to wait until your parents are willing to take her. When you DO go, ask the veterinarian about a fine needle aspirate of the lump. They can examine the cells under a microscope and can tell you whether or not they think it needs to be removed.
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