Hello. I have a question about Archie, our 1.5 year old liver GSP.  Recently he has developed a couple of skin tabs on his front legs, near his elbows.  KInd of weird mole looking things that stick out from his coat and have no hair.

Anyone know what this is exactly? Doesn't seem to bother the knucklehead at all, but I am curious. I'm supposing that cutting them off would put him in a really bad mood and I would never do that. Don't know if an unscheduled trip to the vet is in order or just to wait.

Thanks for any help with this.

Peter

My former dog had these too. She wasn't a GSP - a lab/shepard mix most likley.
Anyway, it seems like the first one showed up when she was fairly young - maybe 2.
The vet offered to test them to see if they were cancerous but I never had that done. The ones on my dog seemed to be some kind of fatty growths. She got more the older she got. A big one grew on her toe in the last couple years of her life. She lived to be just over 12 years. They didn't seem to hurt or anything. I could roll them around in my fingers and she would act like she didn't even feel it.

Some of these lumps on my dog were small. For some of the small ones that I discoved during May or June, I thought they were ticks and tried pulling them off. Then I would discover that they were little growths. They were not good for when I was combing or brushing my dog.  She shed a lot over the summer and had longer hair than a GSP but still not a long haired dog. Had to be careful when combing out the shedding hair.

I hope Archie's are just fatty lumps and not something serious. Show your Vet.

Some dogs are more prone to skin tags. I have one. We have had many removed, and they come back in a different area. Are they genetic? I dunno. If the dog is a hunter, and the skin tags get bigger, you run the risk of having them torn off in the field, or heck even rubbed off on your carpet. Best to have them removed....and your vet can tell you if they would be cancerous, or not. Depending on that, further testing would/should be done, if you wanna catch something before it morphs into more.