Angus a 7 year old Cocker Spaniel came into our clinic as his owner Amanda  noticed he was licking and chewing his hind left toe.  There was a large lump in between two of his toes.

On closer inspection and after clipping the hair away, Dr Link noticed a firm nodular 1.5cm diameter mass in between the 4th hind toe and was firmly attached to the underlying tissue

There was suspicion of a foreign body in the toe or more serious, a cancer.  The best option was to take a biopsy of the lump and for it to be analysed at the laboratory. 

Angus went into surgery and had a small section of the lump taken out.  A bandage was applied and Angus was given antibiotics while we awaited the results.  Angus was not a very cooperative patient and was quite naughty managing to chew off his bandage and the remaining tumour !!

 The biopsy results came back as an apocrine sweat gland andenocarcinoma (a sweat gland tumour) .  The bad news was that this was a malignant one and needed to be removed.  These type of tumours grow quite aggressively and can sometimes metastasize to the lymph nodes and lungs. 

Surgery was the only option to remove the tumour and the surrounding area to ensure all the cancer was removed.

Angus was given a sedative and pain relief prior to the operation.  As he is an older dog, blood tests were carried out to ensure his vital organs were healthy enough to cope with an anaesthetic.  All the results came back as normal.  Angus was placed on Intravenous fluids and taken into surgery