Hi...

I have a 11 year old female German Shepherd. I took her to have her
yearly check-up in mid-May. No lumps were found then. Then my husband
noticed a couple of bumps and took her in to have them checked out.
Then during that visit the vet assistant found a 3rd lump. One is under
her front left leg in the pit area. The 2nd lump is between her
shoulder blades and they think that may just be from her shots in May.
The third lump is on the inside of the back right leg. They want to
wait 3 weeks so they can see how the lump between her shoulder blades
feels. At that time, she will go in for surgery to have either 2 or 3
lumps removed. I plan to have those sent out for testing to make sure
of what they are. I have a few questions that I thought I'd ask the
group before I bring them up to the vet.

First question: Well from reading some archives at google, it seems that
lumps in old dogs can be a common thing so how do you decide how many to
have taken out surgically? I'm concerned that she is going to have 3
areas with stitches and that it will take her a long time to heal from
that. Then what if I find 2 more in six months... do I have those
taken out and then she will have to heal from those as well?

Do vets normally suggest going the surgical route over the biopsy route?
The reason I question this is because the surgery will be lumped with a
teeth cleaning and such.

I want to do what is best for my dog so I'm looking for opinions. I'm
definitely considering going to a different vet for another look.

Thanks for any insight you may have.

Alie