My senior dog has a fast-growing anal gland lump. What to do?

If your dog is happy and you feel that she has a good quality of life and can poop fairly easily, there is no reason to put her down. Listen to your dog. She will tell you when it is time to go. Your dog knows. Apart from that there are quite a few ways to control pain. 1) arthritis pain is probably the worst and worse than tumor pain at this stage. So if she is stiff and wobbly you may want to ask your vet about giving her an NSAIDs for arthritis (she needs to have normal kidney and liver parameters, though, but since you had surgery done recently, your vet may be able to use those blood work results). 2) if she cannot take NSAIDs, then there are other pain medicines available. The lumps under the skin either side of her anus could be filled anal sacs which could be expressed. They may not be tumors. Your vet may be able to stop the bleeding of the tumor by cauterising it, or you can get some Yunnan Baiyao powder or capsules and put the powder on the bleeding wound. It should stop the bleeding for a while.

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! Anal gland tumors are usually adenocarcinomas. The good news is that in general they tend to progress rather slowly. With no therapy, usually it will another 1-4 months before you start noticing signs of the tumor getting the best of him. How long it will take depends on how advanced it is right now. This tumor does not tend to be painful unless it spreads to the bones which is rare but in that case you would notice limping for example. When they get big enough they can affect defecation for example and so the first indications you would get at home that the tumor is progressing and affecting him is if he starts having trouble defecating. Sorry for the sad diagnosis. I hope you get to spend some quality time with him. Good luck!

You are very welcome and honestly, though we wish you weren't in this situation, we're very glad to here. The progression growth for this type of tumor varies greatly by pet. This could be something that has been going on for a while and may always be there without showing much symptom. You'll want to continue monitoring her for any discomfort and report any changes to your doctor. At that time, if it ever comes, you might discuss changes her diet to a softer food. Be sure any changes are made with approval of your treating physician though. With Kidney and Pancreatic concerns diet can be very important. Please let us know if you have any questions of concerns.

With no treatment, and depending on the severity and spread of the tumor, Shep may only have a couple of months left. I would speak to her vet who will give you a better idea of her survival time. I'm sorry you are facing this!

Poor Meesha has a very large tumour on her mammary gland. It is essentially a breast tumour, they can be benign or cancerous but in this case I think this one looks like a very nasty tumour. The wounds on it are because it has become ulcerated. I would suggest visiting another vet as this needs to be dealt with promptly as it will be very painful. To fix this Meesha would need the lump along with associated nipples removex. But firstly i would recommend having her lungs and lymph nodes checked for any spread of tumour. It will be a very big operation to put her through so you will need to weigh this up. If you dont decide to have this removed you will need to consider having Meesha put to sleep unfortunately. It would not be fair to her to not do something in this case.

I'm really sorry to hear this. Unfortunately, surgery is the mainstay of treatment. It is the only proven method to influence survival of dogs with these tumors. Usually dogs with this type of tumors also have kidney failure or high calcium as well which can complicate things. Metastasis (spread) can also be a problem. There is a drug called Palladia (a chemotherapy agent) that is usually given to the dogs after surgery however, I am unsure if it is helpful without surgery being done first. You would have to consult with a veterinary oncologist about that. That being said, that medication is extremely expensive. There is not much that can be done short of surgery and chemotherapy. If you cannot afford treatment then all you can do is make her as comfortable as possible and when it gets to the point that her quality of life is no longer good then you should consider humane euthanasia so she does not suffer. There are no over the counter medications that can be recommended. Hopefully this article will answer more of your questions. ( https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/anal-gland-tumors ) Again, I am sorry to hear this. I hope this helps. Best wishes.

Unfortunately this looks like a nasty tumour growing on Tuna's head. It sounds like it is quite aggressive with growing so fast, and my major concern is the way it is breaking out and ulcerating. This will be painful and high risk for infection. I suspect that this is quite a nasty cancer and that it maybe will not be possible to remove it. I think you need to take Tuna into a vet as soon as possible to have this examined and an appropriate course of action decided upon. It will be causing her a lot of discomfort.