r/AnimalAdvice

We found out today that our golden/lab mix, Tucker, has a cancerous growth near the opening of his ear. It grew fairly quickly over the past month or so, which prompted us to bring him in. We believe he is 9 or 10, based on what they told us from the shelter when we adopted him 7 years ago.

My husband took him in, as I have mandated trainings today.

They sent the biopsy to pathology since there were some things our vet had never seen before. So waiting for those results before scheduling surgery. She said that it’s very close to his facial nerves, which isn’t good.

What makes this even harder is that we had to put our almost 14 year old border collie mix, Kirby, to sleep on 2/11/2026 due to an inoperable mass in his colon that started blocking his rectum.

I’m really not wanting to go through this again, especially not so soon after losing Kirby. Our boys will be absolutely devastated.

Has anyone been through something similar? What were your options and how did you handle it?

Hi, so I recently posted to another sub Reddit about my puppy resource guarding and it was a short video and it wasn’t very helpful because in that video he wasn’t being very aggressive.

People believe that he’s just a puppy and puppies don’t resource guard but I know what resource guard looks like. If I have something he wants or he thinks it’s his I try to take it away because it’s not safe. He will growl or try to bite and thrash his head around.

I learned that trading is a good training tip for resource guarding so I would offer him a high value treat and tell him to drop it and he would and that is still an ongoing training.. but just now I was trying to teach him command commands since he knows basic ones, and the newest command I’m trying to teach is for him to wait whenever I drop food so I can give a OK if he could go eat it. I put the food on the ground. Tell him to wait and if he doesn’t, I pick it back up, but he seemed to be faster,

In which led to him launching forward when I try to move my hand and he attacked my hand bit it and roughly thrashed his mouth around on my hand and then drew blood. If there’s any tips that anyone could give me about this resource guard that would be wonderful.

He may look sweet, but it isnt very nice to have a cute puppy that resource guards …

so just for some context, this is my boyfriends cat. he has multiple outdoor cats bc he lives pretty far out but thats not what i’m here to talk about. his kitty, silkie, is about 2 years now (been outside pretty much the whole time) and has developed some scabs/sores. my first thought is fleas (which i know she has) but ive only ever really seen flea allergies on dogs. the scabs are really bad around her ears, and she has some smaller spots across her body. i know she must be allergic to something out there, any suggestions on what it is?

p.s. we’re american, in the south

I’ve closed it into a bucket with some hay. It wasn’t flying well and was fairly easy to catch as it goes. It’s very wet and puffed up. It wasn’t moving great and just doesn’t seem super energetic. It bit me a few times, very angry. It’s still snowing heavily and pretty cold. A lot of my other animals are shivering. Should I take it home until the snow has passed? I can offer it some cracked corn, which it was probably hanging around to eat what we had out for the chickens.

I found this newborn mouse in my basement. We were able to feed her some milk, but we’re not sure what to do with her now. We don’t have the necessities to care for a baby mouse, and it’s too cold and rainy outside right not to release them.

Not sure how this got into my yard but my dog found the rat poison and a Cheeto puff stacked on top of eachother. She had it on her mouth for maybe 3-4 seconds but she was only holding it in her mouth kinda like when dogs hold an ball in their mouth, she did not chew it and when I told her to drop it she did. After realizing how bad this could be a put her in the bath tub and sprayed her mouth with water and called a poison control number that my local ER recommended and connected me to an automated robot. Another vet said as long as she didn’t ingest any she will be ok but I want another opinion. As for how it got there, it’s possibly a rodents food stash since the spot it was found looks partially dug up which was not done by my dog. For more information she is a 35 lb medium poodle/bernese mix 1.5 years old female. She has a vet appointment tomorrow for a set of shots as well so I will ask them.

UPDATE: she had her appointment and the vet told me I have nothing to worry about so all you rude people can back off. I hope this post will be helpful for dog owners in the future who may need reassurance or answers through similar situations in the future without getting unnecessarily bashed like I have been

I have 4 indoor cats of my own but we feed 4-6 other cats that people have dumped/left behind. We’ve been working on getting them all fixed but it’s expensive. Obviously one of the girls got pregnant and had these 4 adorable babies. She’s a GREAT momma kitty and takes very good care of them. From what I could tell they looked like they were in great condition.

My questions are

1. Any idea how old they are?
2. How long should I leave them with mom before I take them to get shots/fixed/adopted.
   3 will momma kitty feel sad if I take them all at once or should I do it one by one. Thanks!

I noticed probably about a week ago my cat had a dry spot on her side but her fur wasn’t coming out like it is now, she typically has dry skin on her back mostly towards the base of her tail and I brush her frequently to try and help with that. But today I was petting her and her fur was coming out in small pieces with scabs and skin flakes there’s several other spots but one looked irritated like it was itchy. I’m not sure if she could have ringworm but she’s strictly indoor and my other two cats are fine they are also indoor only she’s the only one with these dry patches. She does have a vet appointment scheduled so there’s that.

Borzi has been struggling with serious dental problems for months. He has already gone through multiple abscess surgeries and dental treatments, and he is now unable to eat on his own. For almost two months we have been hand-feeding him liquid food 5-6 times a day just to keep him alive.

The repeated treatments and anesthesia have been very hard on his tiny body, and recently we also found out that he has kidney problems. He now needs further dental treatment and kidney therapy.

We tried to handle everything on our own, but after months of treatments, surgeries, and several unexpected family expenses, we have sadly reached the point where we need help to continue Borzi’s care.

We started a fundraiser in the hope of giving him the chance to eat without pain again and hopefully have peaceful, happy days ahead of him. ❤️

We are deeply grateful for every donation, kind word, and message of support. Even one share helps us a lot. ❤️
https://4fund.com/h3a9u9

She does not seem uncomfortable or in any pain. She does open it normal from time to time as well.

He passed away suddenly after an eleven day illness that turned out to be cancer and interstitial lung disease I’d had no idea he had at only 6.5 years old. I keep googling things trying to figure out how he got so sick so young. One theory is the cancer caused systemic inflammation that went to his lungs but recently i started worrying that a bark collar somehow caused the lung problems. I’m losing so much sleep worrying I caused it. His vets never mentioned any trachea issue on his X-rays but I never asked about the collar and now I’m worried they didn’t look because they focused on lungs. If his trachea was ok and it wasn’t a result of anything I did it would give me so much peace of mind you don’t even know. I loved him with my whole heart despite his intense loud barking that drove the neighbors nuts. His airway seemed fine until sudden prostate cancer symptoms showed up and then all of a sudden he was breathing so fast and it seemed like his throat hurt the last few days…he’d pick at food and then cry after swallowing it, then eventually wouldn’t eat at all. I had taken the collar off of him as soon as the urinating problems and sickness started, yet he kept getting worse. I did everything I could to save him including four vet visits, spending 4500$ on images and meds, and then the final, he’s suffering, you have to let him go now appointment talk.

My cat is is a larger male, and felt this bump on his neck almost over night. He cuddles with me nightly so I know it wasn't this size last night or even noticed at all. Is this something I can just monitor or should I take him to a vet? First time owning pets by myself long term and just wondering the severity or any tips on how to gage these matters.

UPDATE: Herman is fine his sister kitty probably just got him good one time. No ring worm. The vet said ringworm is quite uncommon to be diagnosed without some sort of immune system suppression. WHAT A MORNING LOL Thank you for the love and concern of my fur baby.

My cat is day 7 post op of her spay and today I noticed a small opening in her incision. It seems to be surface level and there is no bleeding. She still is eating normally , using the bathroom normally and doesn’t seem to be in any pain as she still is trying to be active. The swelling slightly concerns me. Unfortunately the vet is closed for the day. I’ve put her onesie back on and am trying to restrict her movement. Any recommendations or similar experiences ?