An old golden retriever has an eyelid tumour

 23, 2014 was Deepavali, was a rainy morning. I did not expect any customers. A car parked outside and a man with a young adult son brought in a 9-year-old golden retriever with an eyelid tumour.

"It looks like a cauliflower wart, " I said. "How long has he got this lower eyelid tumour?"
"I saw it this morning," the father said. "Probably 2 weeks. He has been tearing and rubbing his eyes."
"The only cure is V-shaped cut to remove it. Has he got a blood test recently?".
"OK," he said.I "He was not eating and had a blood test done by Dr Daniel, but there was no problem."

I showed him the blood test results of 2 months ago and explained: "The total red blood cell, haemoglobin and platelets were low."
"He had anaemia probably due to tick bites," I said. "Did he have a lot of ticks 2 weeks before you consulted Dr Daniel?"

"Yes, yes," the father said. "The anti-tick spot on was not effective but now he has no ticks as I have had changed to a new brand."

"Your dog is thin although his gums are not pale now and has better appetite. The low platelet count in his blood showed that he was likely to have been poisoned at that time too. It also could be due to the tick-borne disease attacking his red blood cells."

I walked him to a chart illustrating the effects of tick bites explaining that Babesia parasites could destroy the red blood cells causing anaemia.

"Yes, it was possible that he could be poisoned. We used a lot of ant poison to get rid of the ants and he might have consumed it."
The dog was anaesthesized and operated upon by Dr Daniel. He used electro-excision to cut out the tumour in a V-shaped incision.. Then he stitched the two ends.

Histopathology showed that this was a meibomian gland epithelioma, not malignant.

The dog went home at around 3 pm. The father and two grown up adult sons came to bring the dog back home.

It was great to see a father who bothered to treat the old dog. Just two days ago, a lady told me that her husband refused to give the 9-year-old Schnauzer dental extraction as he would not pay for it. The Schnauzer had come for vaccination.

"How much would he pay for dental scaling and extraction?" I had quoted around $300 for anaesthesia and dental work.
"Less than a hundred dollars."
The dog had periodontitis Stage 4 with some teeth dropped. He had a hole below his right eye. A carnaissal tooth abscess opening up a hole below the right eye.
"Maybe the carnaissal tooth had dropped off," she said.
had