Charlie

Charlie is about a year old. Several months ago he came into our lives and just decided to stick around. He's very attached to his owner. He's bubbly at times, like when you poke him, but mostly he's pretty quiet. He mostly spends his days just lying around and kicking back with his owner.

My best guess is that Charlie is either a mammary tumor or a lipoma. He could also be a hernia, but I doubt it. I understand that there are several different types of hernias in dogs named according to the area they affect. In puppies, the most common hernia is the umbilical hernia, but it tends to reduce or go away by 6 months of age. This dog is a few years old. Inguinal hernias are also common, but Charlie doesn't seem to be in the right location to be one of those. Inguinal hernias appear in the groin area. I can't push Charlie back into the abdomen which leads me to believe he's probably not a hernia of any description. Certainly hernias can become incarcerated (trapped) or even strangulated (blood cut off), but I'm guessing either of these conditions would probably have manifested some other symptoms by now.

Ok, so Charlie probably is not a hernia. Is he just a lump of fat, a lipoma? I dunno. I think vets usually remove these and send them to the lab or they do a biopsy to find out. Lipomas, I believe are usually harmless, though occasionally they can become cancerous. I'm given to understand that lipomas can develop anywher, but all the pictures of surgeries I've seen seem to remove lipomas from well below the skin. Charlie is very close to the surface.

How about a mammary tumor? Well, I understand that spayed female dogs (especially when spayed as puppies) and male dogs almost never get breast cancer. This one is an unspayed female. The problem is you can't determine if the tumor is malignant or if there's been a metastasis without a biopsy and tests.

At the end of the day, Charlie's been with us for a good long while now and his owner seems to be oblivious to him. I'd say that's as good as any indication that Charlie's bark is probably fiercer than his bite.