Harriet went to the vet last week. She was due for her rabies vaccine, and I wanted to talk to the vet about her allergies and her butt lump (it’s started bugging her). Harriet was Very Good. No surprise, because she has always been good at the vet, no matter what horrible things they do to her. The new vet, after doing a fine needle aspiration of the lump, pronounced her “tough as nails.” Miss Brown may be melodramatic, but she’s also made of stern stuff.
On the allergy front, the vet recommended 50mg of Benadryl 3x/day (dogs require a much higher dose than we do). I’ve given her Benadryl in the past, but only 25mg once or twice a day. A higher dose does seem to be helping. I’m also trying a different food, because the vet agreed that Harriet’s allergies are largely food-related (if they were environmental, they’d go away or at least decrease in winter). So I picked up a bag of venison and sweet potato kibble and a few cans of the same formula, for treats. I figured that she’s never had venison, so she’s less likely to react to it. She’s had sweet potato, but the other limited ingredient foods at the pet supply shop both had potato in them, and she’s had that, too.
Aside from the food change, we’re going to keep her on Benadryl for three weeks. If that doesn’t work, the vet mentioned trying Zyrtec. We also talked about prednisone, which I’m really leery of. It would likely help with the allergies as well as hopefully shrink the tumor, but it’s magical tumor-shrinking powers are finite. That’s an avenue I don’t want to go down unless and until it’s absolutely necessary. My feeling is that, if the tumor truly needs to be dealt with, I want it removed. The vet was concerned about removal, though, because 1) Miss Brown ain’t got no fat on her butt, and 2) she is a 9 year old Boxer. She’s reluctant to put a Boxer of that age under unless it’s really, truly necessary. I agree, but I think it might be really, truly necessary.
So at this point, we’re waiting to see if lessening Harriet’s allergies will lessen the tumor’s irritation factor, and 2) for test results. The vet looked at the slide and saw a few cells she wasn’t comfortable with identifying, so she was going to have a colleague look at it. If her colleague can’t identify them, they’ll send it out. I’m going to call back on Monday, but the vet said to assume that no news was good news, so that’s what I’m doing.
I guess this is the kind of crap you go through when you own a Boxer. They are notoriously allergic, lumpy dogs. Thankfully, Harriet seems to have avoided the heart problems common in the breed (murmurs, SAS, and cardiomyopathy). Her teeth are beautiful, she’s not showing any signs of arthritis, no hip dysplasia, and she doesn’t suffer from any of the breathing problems that brachycephalic breeds sometimes experience.
In the meantime, Harriet is off all forms of people food, including her beloved peanut butter. Woe is Harriet!
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1. Assuming anything shows up one way or the other. My understanding is that FNAC is not necessarily a good diagnostic tool for determining that a fatty tumor is, indeed, just a fatty tumor. And it’s probably a moot point, anyway, since my opinion is that the stupid lump needs to be removed, regardless.
red paper boat 