Daja has had an adventure this week. On Tuesday mom took Daja and Tiger to the vet for their annual shots. (Taking not one, but two animals to the vet while being 8 months pregnant is not easy! Daja was bonkers as usual and Tiger would rather have been anywhere but there.) During the visit, the vet looked at a spot on Daja's back upper thigh that has been there for awhile and occasionally gets irritated. She decided to take a sample from it and determined that the spot was a Mast cell tumor.
A mast cell tumor is a tumor that is very common in dogs and are supposedly weimaraners are one of several breeds that are predisposed to them. According to the vet, the tumor was full of histamine so it likely could have been the result of allergies. The vet feels that the tumor is probably a grade one which is the lowest level and has the best results and wanted to do surgery to remove the spot.
So back we went on Wednesday for surgery. Mom dropped Daja off on her way to work. The office called after the procedure was done and said Daja was doing fine. Daja is now sporting a lovely 3.5 inch incision on her back leg. The tumor was mostly flat and only about the size of a fingertip, but they have to remove 2-3 centimeters all the way around to test and make sure the tumor cells haven't spread. The vet feels that the prognosis is very good but we have to wait a week on the results of the pathology test.
We've been trying to make Daja take it easy for the recommended five days (haha). She seems to feel fine, though, and doesn't understand why we won't let her run around! Luckily the stitches are all dissolving stitches under the skin, so we don't have to go back to have them removed. Thankfully, Daja has been excellent about leaving the incision alone, so she hasn't had to wear a lovely elizabethan collar.
One advantage of the surgery was that we had Daja's teeth cleaned. They have been telling us that she has the beginnings of some bad teeth and needed to have them cleaned. Since they were already putting her under for the surgery, it was inexpensive to add on the cleaning. She now has really pearlly whites!! It is amazing how much cleaner her teeth are! I wish my dentist could get my teeth that white!
