How to Care for a Dog Diagnosed with Breast Cancer

In the fall of 2005 my Pomeranian was only a day away from being spayed when I found detected a lump on her stomach. I immediately became concerned and thought of breast cancer. Precious had been found on the side of the road and my vet estimated that she was probably around 5-7 years old. This unfortunately meant that she had been in heat several times. In order to help prevent breast cancer in dogs, you must have them fixed before they go into heat. I wish I had been able to do this for Precious. But, it was too late.

I took Precious to the vet the next day, for her surgery, and asked them about the lump on her stomach. They told me that it may or may not be breast cancer. The only way to be sure would be to send the mass off to have it tested. But, since she was being spayed that day, they would go ahead and remove the lump. This made me feel a little bit better. When I picked Precious up from the vet, it was hard to tell if the entire mass had been removed, because of her stitches. When her stitches were removed, I was thrilled that the lump was gone and started to put the bad thoughts of breast cancer out of my mind.

On Halloween of 2005, I found myself back in the vet's office. Almost over night another lump developed on Precious' stomach. This time the vet was able to take a sample and determine that the cells were cancerous. Again, Precious went into surgery and the breast cancer was removed. The vet told me that it would be seven years before the breast cancer would return, if it did return, which was unlikely. Unfortunately, this wasn't true.