Big lump on dogs back

[Sarah221]

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Hi all, I hope someone can help me with this. My mum adopted a dog for a friend as she could no longer care for her. So the previous owner would pick at a lump on Poppy's back, anyway over the past 6 months this lump has opened up and is really bad. My mum took poppy to the vets and was told it was a cyst and sent away with cream. This hasn't helped at all. My mum got some powder recommended by someone, this helped and it seemed to be healing but now it's all opened up again. She's a bichon frise and she's 14. The wound/lump is fleshy looking and a bit bigger then a 2p

 

[eingana]

Hi Sarah, and welcome to DogForum

That lump looks awfully like a tumour to me I'm afraid. Tumours are not necessarily dangerous though, and many animals and humans die with a tumour rather that dying of a tumour when they are getting old, if that makes any sense.

Personally I would take her to the vets (possibly a different vet to the first time around) and have a very frank discussion with them about what it is. I can't see any point in treating a tumour (with a view to curing it) if the dog is not in good enough health to withstand the treatment, but there are probably lots of things that the vet could do to make things better (that's better than it was, but not necessarily 100% better).

She needs a general MOT and needs her heart and lungs assessing and a panel of blood tests to see whether she could be healthy enough for a general anaesthetic or sedation for a start, to enable a biopsy of the site to work out what it is, whether that's cyst, infection, tumour or a combination of more than one of these. Without this then I'm afraid that any attempt at treatment will be limited to trying to make Poppy comfortable and reducing infection. That's not to say that Poppy doesn't have long automatically though- I have known dogs and cats live for years with a very slowly advancing tumour and have good quality of life with just a daily dose of Metacam and sometimes some antibiotics to keep it clean.

The full treatment for either a cyst that's not resolving itself or a tumour will involve surgery to remove it, but clearly whether that is done will come down to Poppy's overall health.

I hope that you find a vet that is prepared to investigate and treat this to your satisfaction.

Please give Poppy a scritch from me