Thread: Growth on spleen

Seem to be having a bad run with my dogs. My vizsla went off his food and was in pain, took him to vet, they just rang saying big growth on his spleen. They arent keen on needle biopsy in case it causes a bleed so said essentially remove to see if cancerous or not or leave in and ride the rollercoaster of what day it ruptures. Not a cheap operation and relatively invasive so only want to put him through it if decent chance of good outcome. Anyone got any more info on additional ways to assess likelihood of it being cancerous or not?

If it is cancer ill be wondering why I've had two dogs in around a year knocked over with it

What age ??

That friggen sucks. I hope it works out to be all good for you both.


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Man that sucks big time. No unfortunately it needs to be biopsied or removed to find out if it's cancer. If he is young I would get it removed and hope it hasn't spread.
Good luck

Hes 9-10 (acts like a 1 year old so forget how old he actually is) was just starting to think about bringing another dog into the mix for him to show them the ropes but sounding like hole in the ground time.

He / she is ya loyal mate. Personally I would just get it removed and deal with the after effects later.
We had our boy do his acl not long after having an eye op to fix a burst corneal ulcer, sure it hurt the wallet twice but so what was worth it

Double posted somehow

Originally Posted by distant stalker

Hes 9-10 (acts like a 1 year old so forget how old he actually is) was just starting to think about bringing another dog into the mix for him to show them the ropes but sounding like hole in the ground time.

FWIW our boy is 9 and people think I am mad and should have just put him down but he has been a loyal mate and............................................... ................

Hes an awesome dog but last one was dead a month after finding a growth and dropping big coin to get it removed (that and him having to go through recovery) so bit gunshy of putting another one through it all

I think that if it was me I would let nature take its course and not go with surgery. Any surgery around liver/spleen is pretty invasive and would need a long recovery.
If it is cancer, then it would be unlikely for a vet to get it all. If it is something else but benign it is better left.
Dogs and cats shouldn't get cancer - wild ones don't but domestic ones do. When I was a kid, dogs didn't get cancer. It seems to be correlated to diet. I don't know what you feed your dogs and in your case ds this suggestion might be wrong, but generally raw food feeding a natural diet has a much better outcome than Kibble.
Kibble or any grain type feeds like dog biscuits neutralise the dogs stomach acid. Bones and raw meat requiring a good amount of stomach acid for digestion should never be fed in the same meal as any grain based feed.

I'd go to another vet willing to do a needle biopsy.

For goodness sake, how thick needles does your present vet use since he is so afraid of causing "bleeding"?

ALL needles cause bleeding, but it's not a manstopper bleed - even in the spleen - just a tiny wee internal bleed that will sort itself out if your doggie has normal blood clotting ablitity. Certainly a lot safer than cutting doggie open!

That said, it's painful to know when to pull the plug on your best friend. Sorry mate.

I'm with @Moa Hunter on the grain they stuff into supposedly healthy dog food. Not natural, just a crap filler you pay through your nose for. Cancers can't feed off fat / ketones, they are obligatory glucose metabolisers, even have extra insulin receptors on their surfaces to ensure they get lots of glucose. Here comes more grain! PET body scans that look for cancers look for high areas of glucose uptake, that says it all.

Sorry to hear about your dog.
Just slightly off topic but what’s with people feeding there dogs vegan dog food?

Originally Posted by Sideshow

Sorry to hear about your dog.
Just slightly off topic but what’s with people feeding there dogs vegan dog food?

No problem with that, except for extreme difficulty getting the right amino acids into the dog, and so vegans invariably rely on soy protein - and soy has oestrogen properties (in the human body at least).

The dog will of course not be truly vegan anyway - will eat flies, insects, cat turds, other dog's turds... Labradors are best equipped to survive such mistreatment for that reasaon.

9/10 years old is not a young dog despite his energy levels, all our old fellas are pretty much the same here missing too many teeth but happy to mix it up with the young ones, he’s had a good life bro even at that age, I also like to let nature go full circle and accept what it throws, we had a 14 year old last year who was right as rain one week got sick, got opened up and then closed up then put down a week later once her quality of life went down hill.
Yep he is your mate but better to let him enjoy the days he may have left... could be lots of them for all that worry.
The cancer in younger dogs is another issue.