My dog bites non-cancerous growths. Are there surgery alternatives?

Unfortunately, this is not likely to be something that you can do at home - cryosrugery is occasionally used for lesions like this in dogs, but this is not something that most general practitioners would have the necessary equipment to do. Over-the-counter products for human warts (like Dr. Scholl's "Freeze Off") are not approved for use on dogs, and would not be expected to be effective on sebaceous adenomas because these are quite different from warts at the cellular level - it's more likely that they would become irritated and inflamed by the treatment, rather than being successfully frozen off. I have never seen any other successful option for these growths apart from surgical removal as needed, unfortunately. If the growths are quite small, it may be possible to remove them with a local anesthetic and possibly a bit of light sedation - you could certainly talk with your vet about this option if you are concerned about costs, or risks of anesthesia.

If they are small and just on top of the skin, there is an instrument used to help freeze them off. Sometimes can require a light sedation but not general anesthesia. It is worth seeing if you can find a vet that has a cyroprobe to help get rid of some of them.

I would recommend having these removed. Mainly because Jango won't leave them alone, they have grown and we cannot say if they are cancerous or not unless we have a biopsy. Your vet can remove this and then send it out to the lab to have the pathologist review it. Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

Hello. This does not look like an aggressive cancer, it actually looks more wart-like. But the only to know definitively is with a fine needle aspirate. The biggest criteria to remove a growth is malignancy, but even benign growths can become large enough to cause significant issues. If this is very slow growing & remains a nonproblem for Tiny, then I would not be inclined to remove it surgically. It may be a good candidate to remove with liquid nitrogen without needing anesthesia. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

I would ask your veterinarian about the option to freeze the wart off. it is small enough that it may work. However, working near the eye with the freezing solution is risky because the freezing solution could go into the eye and that would be bad. There are cotton swabs you can freeze and then apply the cotton swab to the wart and see if a few treatments with this would help shrink the mass down in size. Unfortunately, surgical removal is typically the best way to get rid of these masses. I hope this helps!

From the looks of the pictures, they look like benign adenomas or skin tags which are common in older dogs. If she is chews at them, you could try 50mg (2 tablets) of adult benadryl twice a day to help with the itching. You can also place a cone collar on her to prevent the chewing. If the chewing won't stop, any of them start to look infected, or any of them are getting bigger, then I would recommend to see a vet to ensure they do not look cancerous.

It would be a good idea to have Maximus examined by your veterinarian. These growths may be benign but there is a chance that they are getting infected and this is causing Maximus to bite at them. Unfortunately, it is also possible that that some of these growths could be cancerous. Your veterinarian can evaluate the growths and help you decide if surgical removal is best or if any medications are needed. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach and best of luck to you and Maximus!