The Mysterious Lump – Answers

This is an umbilical hernia. It is due to a defect in the muscle wall where the umbilical cord attached. In people we call this the belly button.

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The hole in the muscle allows fat from the inside to poke out. If that is all that happens, the dog is fine. If the hole is big enough and lets intestine fall through, it can lose its blood supply, what we call strangulated, and the dog can die.

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The solution in this case is surgery to stitch the hole closed. Simple to do and effective.

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The additional procedure to consider is sterilization (ovariohysterectomy) because we don’t want this dog to produce puppies. It is thought to be inheritable. As a side note, we don’t take an appendix out of a dog. It rarely becomes diseased.