Replied by Dez (Waukegan, Il) on 12/05/2011

I have a 7 year old pitbull and he had a lump on his right shoulder for quite sometime. I took him to the vet when I started to notice it and they said not to worry it was just a cyst and that if it bothered us or if he keeps scratching it we can have it removed (It was in the perfect spot for him to scratch too) Due to financial issues at the time we chose to leave it for a while. One day I was reading some forums and noticed one that said that if the lump stays hard its ok but if it gets mushy it was time to be concerned. He scratched it so hard one day he broke the skin on it so we decided to take him in to have it removed. He didn't see his usual doc this day so it was kind of relieving to have someone else look at it. She poked it and blood came out. She was concerned. He went into surgery that day and they did a biopsy. Ended up being cancerous and they had to remove a large area of muscle to make sure it was all gone!! Dont wait and don't try to cure at home... Looks are deceiving and even your doctor can be wrong sometimes. Second opinions are ok!