Dogs' Health Issues

My not even 8 yr old border collie has been tenatively diagnosed with subungual squamous cell carcinoma in his 3rd toe which is weight bearing. The vet wants to remove the toe immediately. She showed me xrays and honestly I just didn't see anything there. His feet are white colored (not dark) his WHOLE toe is swollen but not like massive, I don't see any outer bubbled areas on it (like a growth) just a swollen top part of his toe. Its of course a weight bearing toe, so I will get a 2nd opinion about this before agreeing. But will he be able to relearn to walk ok on his foot without limping? Also, one of his lymph nodes is swollen too, so she has taken a sample and will get the pathology report on Saturday.

I'm at a loss as to what to do. I have to do something quick though since I'm leaving for the States in less than 2 weeks, so this surgery will have to take place next week and the person staying at the house will have to learn how to take care of him and keep him ok and re-learning how to walk without his 3rd toe.

Thanks for ANY advice you can offer...also if you've ever heard that dogs will walk normally again missing their 3rd toe. Haven't found much info on the internet about it... :(

Welcome to the board. If it came back as squamous carcinoma, I would definitely remove that, SCC can be pretty aggressive - you will be surprised at how fast he will be able to walk on that foot with a toe missing - dogs are amazing creatures!

Good luck!

I have not posted here but just had to respond.

My doxie Twinkie had to have a toe removed due to the same thing. It was on a back foot, and she did just fine after the surgery.  Admittedly i did lose her later from something totally different BUT she was 15 1/2 years old and back about 4 years before that my bed side challenged vet,  told me she blew a heart valve so she was on borrowed time well before that toe removal.  Once the bandage was removed and that, she did just fine.  The hardest part was she was a doxie, built extremely low to the ground so I swear she piddled on the bandage almost every day!  So the most challenging thing was taking her back to the vet the next day, having them check the toe over while they had it unwrapped and being taught how to wrap it since we knew it would happen again.

She was also over 14 years old when the toe was removed.  They did use laser surgery, and because of her age and heart problems they used an anesthetic that was the best one to use if they needed to bring her out of it fast for some reason(heart, etc). 

I would have it done!

Auntydoxzz