I'm not sure what to do, can someone help?

My dog is 12 years old, he has had a lipoma on his tail that hasn't grown much for about 6 years its about the size of a small walnut, recently it started bleeding so we took him to our vet and she told us that we should do blood work and a biopsy to see if its malignant, in the mean time she gave us something to disinfect and clean the wound daily and bandage it up.

We have been doing this for about a week now and the bleeding doesn't stop but its not bleeding excessively or anything, it usually just bleeds when we change the bandage and then the bleeding stops.

Yesterday we got the results of the blood work and our dog is completely healthy so now the next step she said was to amputate the dogs tail and then do a biopsy on the lipoma to see if it is malignant, i know the risks when a dog gets anesthesia and it has me a bit apprehensive about doing the surgery despite the fact that my dogs blood work came back really good, i wonder if it were best to do a biopsy first and if it turns out that it isn't malignant could we just continue to clean and disinfect the wound, i mean i feel that if it isn't bothering my dog and if he is healthy and happy do we really need to amputate his tail? or could we just continue to clean the would and bandage it up every day?

Does anyone have any experience with something like this or have any opinions on what i should do next?

As far as I am aware, lipomas are non-cancerous fatty tumours best left alone. If I am correct, not sure why the vet wants to do a biopsy? A dog's tail is a very important appendage and should not be removed on a whim. I would do some research before committing to major surgery.

Agree with Gnasher. Is there any possibility of a second opinion ?
I would be asking why not test the lump first I am sure a sedation to take a biopsy could be done if necessary then review from there if it is cancerous.

Ii think your choices are these, you can leave it alone and continue to wash and dress it for the rest of the dogs life, you can have a biopsy done now , and given the outcome decide on an amputation or not depending on the results, or go with the amputation now while the dog is still young enough and healthy.

The lipoma could get bigger if left alone and depending where it is could give your dog more problems and become sore as well as bleeding all the time.

Only you can make the choice, you know your dog, what he can and cant put up with whether is is in good health or not so good, do you do the op now while he is relatively healthy or leave it and have to do it further down the road with more risk to his health.

Speak to your vet or get a second opinion, but ask yourself what benefit the dog will have to his life without this problem.

If it was me, I would look at it like this, if my boy was old, and I knew he only had a short time left and I felt he could cope with this for the rest of his life, then I would leave it, but if he was "oldish" and had years ahead of him he was healthy and fit I would probable have it removed to cut out any future issues.

Dogs can cope well without their tail, and yes anesthetic is a risk but I am sure your vet would not suggest it if your dog was not a candidate for it,

pros and cons, decide which benifits the dog most.

I don't have experience with that but I don't see why it would need amputation to get a sample for a biopsy.

If the biopsy shows nothing malignent your dog will have lost his tail for no sound reason.

I agree with Jackie tbh, losing the tail is not the end of the world if it means he has many more happy and healthy years. Docked dogs have managed just fine for decades and don't believe for a minute dogs can't express themselves without a tail.
I'd talk to the vet some more about the risks and go from there.

I had to have Lurcher Tweed's tail amputated after she self operated on a large cyst overnight. It took a full three weeks to heal as, even though they can wear a collar, you can't stop them from rubbing their stump on the carpet! We had to supervise her in shifts 24/7. Once healed, you would never know that she had been tailed, it made no difference, except that she had a circular wag rather than a sideways one
A lady that I train with has just had her Beardie's tail amputated due to cancer. She didn't have any of the problems that we had with Tweed. This dog is also fine.

What breed is your dog?

lhasa apso

he has the lipoma on his tail and its not like its hurting him or anything, he looks good and happy, every time i change his bandages some blood comes out but as soon as i put the bandages on it stops, i just don't see why i couldn't just keep cleaning the wound especially if it it turns out to not be malignant. Would it become infected? despite the fact that i would keep cleaning it daily?

if the lipoma hadn't started to bleed about a week ago, we wouldn't even be talking about removing it his tail.