Hmm, that’s not good.

Well, my day didn’t go as planned. Not at all.

Went out to do morning chores and saw that Bob the Dog (the other guardian, not Mackenzie, who’s the one that got bitten by a something a little while ago) had a big lump on his neck. It wasn’t there last week, and it’s HUGE. Maybe an abscess, I figure, those happen regularly enough if the animals get into something poky and then it gets encapsulated … messy, but I can deal with that. So I get all my gear out to do just that and … yeah, what’s under all that muck is NOT what I was expecting. Whatever it is, it’s clearly beyond my skill set, so off we go to the vet. Plus I had to deliver the Small People to their mom today, as it is the Princess Girls’ birthday party (she’s 9) today.

This means we drive north and drop the dog off at the vet, then west to deliver the kids to town, pause to call the vet, yup, he’s ready, go back for the dog on the way home.

It’s not an abscess, it’s a tumour. It grew so fast it outgrew the blood supply and got an infection – I was sure there was an infection of some kind, because it smelled wrong. Anyway, Bob’s on antibiotics now and will have the tumour removed next week - he’s an old dog (almost 11 is old for an outside guardian) but the initial exam suggests it’s the kind of tumour that’s probably well localized, and he should “outlive the cancer” as my vet put it. Which is good, because it’s not cheap to have a big dog go for surgery. Still, Bob’s worked hard and protected the sheep and he’s earned his pension and his pay. He got a dish of meat (pressure canned actual MEAT) when he got home, and he’s out there now with a stupid looking bandage around his neck because the nasty thing wouldn’t stop bleeding after being poked and prodded and biopsied. Fortunately Bob was quite cooperative about it all. But good grief, the poor puppy has a lump almost the size of my fist sticking out of his neck, yuk!

Fingers are crossed that it’s not the kind that will have metastisized, though he’s earned palliative care regardless and getting this taken off would be a comfort measure either way, so … there we have it. My vet’s pretty optimistic though, so we are too.

Now, I had planned to do a bunch of weaving today – I have an art show in less than a month and nothing to show, so I have to get up to the loom!