My dog has a lump. What is it?

Most of the lumps and bumps we find in our dogs aren’t cancer.

However, it’s nearly impossible to tell this for sure by just looking at a lump or bump, especially if it’s under the skin - which most of them are. Most of the time we want to take a small sample of the material inside the lump and look at the cells we retrieve under a microscope, in order to identify what they are. Sometimes we still can’t tell, and the lump has been removed and a biopsy performed in order to obtain a diagnosis.

Your dog has 5 sets of lymph nodes that can be felt on the outside of the body. They are under the jaw, on the front of the shoulders, under the armpits, inside the groin, and behind the knees. It’s important to determine if the lumps you’re feeling on your dog could be lymph nodes because enlarged lymph nodes can be a sign of severe infection or cancer.

source: https://www.petcoach.co/