My pal is licking his fatty tumor raw (update @post 28)

I rescued my buddy Freddy 13 years ago and he has developed a fatty tumor in the last 4 years its the size of a baseball and has been licking it raw for the past 3 days now he has never fussed with it ever !!! Does anyone have any options for me to help him the vet claims he is to old to get the surgery and he is healthy other then this I need advice anyone please help!!!

4yrs! You should of taken steps to have this removed a long time ago. Waiting this long to do something is cruel. A tumour the size of a baseball is HUGE and shame on you for allowing it to get this far. It's obviously really bothering your dog now so my best advice to you is to have your dog put to sleep to save anymore suffering.

Where is the lump? What does it look like? Can you get a picture and post it? Did the vet aspirate it to see what it could be? Is the lump attached to anything or just floating around under the skin?

Merryvale, not all lumps need removal and not all are dangerous. I've had plenty of fosters that had lumps (mostly the older ones) and they were checked and they were nothing more than fatty tissue. My two dogs (one is 7 and the other 15) have lump(s). They were checked and it is nothing serious so I am not going to take the risk of putting them under. When I first brought home my 15 year old, he had a nasty, angry looking lump on his side that he would constantly chew. I changed his food and it slowly went away and now it is completely gone.

There is no reason to be jumping down the OP's throat and saying her dog should be put down without knowing more details; that is very insensitive. More details need to be known before coming up with an opinion.

Really? A lump the size of a baseball is a huge lump in any dog and this dog is 15yrs old. What a great way to treat an animal.

Here are some pictures of Peluche's lump and how it went away. I never took a picture of when the lump was 100% gone, I guess I could but there's nothing there.

Like I said, we don't know enough. The lump may have just recently grown. I can just imagine how easily you would kill your dogs considering your wording. Sad.

Again really? The pictures of the lump you posted are of a cyst. A lot different to a baseball size tumour. And as for your last comment re me "killing my dogs" Grow up! The OP should have taken their dog to the vets a long time ago when the tumour was much smaller and may have been easier to remove. It is now way past being operable so what would you do with this poor old dog? Let it suffer?

You are assuming the op hasn't taken the dog to the vet before this. They may have gone when it was a smaller and the vet advised leaving it...and now that the lump is bothering the dog the vet says that the dog is too old for the surgery!

I've had lots of dogs with lumps. One of them had a big lump on their chest and we went to the vets about it on a number of occassions, each time the vet said to leave it as she wasn't bothered by it and it would be more distressing for her to have it removed. Eventually she grew a tiny lump on her eye lid, the size of a very small pea, which did annoy her and she began blinking repetively. The vet suggested moving this one and while she was under doing a few of the others. When they removed the one on her chest it was discovered that it was massive, like a bum bag slung across her shoulder and underneath the other font leg with a huge lump in the middle of it. She recovered fully.

If its bothering the dog that much I would return to the vet and ask lots of questions. I know it's individual for each dog but my last dog had an op at 16, we accepted the risk but felt the op was necessary for his quality of life. The vet used an anaesthetic with an antidote that meant he came round more quickly. The other option is to go fr a second opinion. Good luck!

OP's dog is a big dog and a baseball is about the size of a tennis ball. I've seen dogs with harmless tumours as big as that that it was considered inadvisable to remove. Because the main problem was just the unsightliness of it. It wasn't hurting or bothering the dog at all. And these 'fatty harmless tumours' sometimes decrease in size and sometimes get bigger again and so on. (I had a cat with one on its side, not as big as this - about cherry size - looked horrible dark blue - vet said do nothing - it actually went away by itself eventually.)

The OP has taken vet advice and has come here because she is obviously not 100% satisfied with that advice.

You could be a little more supportive. She rescued this dog 13 years ago and we don't know how old it was when she got it. I can believe a vet has said it is too old to undergo the surgery.

My Cavvy had a non malignant lump behind one ear. It was about as big as a large grape (so probably equivalent in size to OP's dog's one pro rata for her body size - taking into account the difference in size of the breeds)

ALL the vets I took her to said NO to removing it (and so did the experts in the Veterinary Diagnostic Lab where my daughter worked at the time. Because she had by then been diagnosed with the heart murmur and, although it was not bad enough to require medication yet, they said that a general anaesthetic for anything other than life or death matters was inadvisable for her in her condition.

She did in the end have to have it removed because it started to irritate her and she scratched it and made it bleed and she'd developed another one that was not harmless so they removed them both at the same time. She was about 9yrs old by then. If she hadn't developed the other one I'd have still done nothing about the first one. I wouldn't risk her health for something that I just didn't like the look of.

It could well be that OP's vet advice was valid when this lump was not bothering her dog but they might have a different opinion now that it is.

Whichever way it is very sad and I feel sorry for anyone who's had a canine friend and companion for more than a decade and is now faced with maybe losing them.

My advice would be to see another vet to get a second opinion but prepare for the worst outcome - if your dog has reached the natural lifespan for its breed it could well be that a vet doesn't consider surgery a good option.

Hello Ryan and welcome can you tell us whereabouts the tumor which I guess is a lipoma is on your dogs body .

One of my previous dogs had a couple of lipoma one on her shoulder one on her chest. I wouldn't have them operated on because Amy's heart wasn't very good and they caused no problems.

I would try to distract Freddy when he is licking by giving him something he is allowed to chew and lick like a kong or stag bar .

It may be possible to cover the lump with some kind of coat for a little while until Freddy gets out of the habit of bothering it .