I wrote a couple of weeks ago about our Labrador Daisy giving birth to nine beautiful puppies.

Daisy has been a wonderful mum and the puppies are growing well, their eyes are open, and they are starting to play. However, life is never simple, and so it was that last week I noticed that Daisy was slightly off colour and had a small lump on the side of her ribcage. Because one can never be rational about one’s own pets (particularly those with nine gorgeous puppies) I took Daisy in to see my colleagues.

We had a conflab and decided that, although we did not know exactly what this mass was, we would wait before investigating - particularly as we did not want to do anything dramatic while Daisy was still feeding pups. The next six days passed uneventfully – the swelling was still there but not getting any worse. Then, suddenly, at the beginning of this week the mass or swollen area doubled in size in a matter of hours.

There was no option now, I had to investigate. My primary thought was that this was some sort of foreign body reaction causing thickened tissue with a pus-filled centre rather than something cancerous, but I could not completely rule out the latter.

With the swelling growing before my eyes, I got Daisy to give the puppies their morning feed and then took her into work.

You must be careful about what anaesthetics you give a lactating animal as you do not want drugs to be transferred to the puppies when they feed; with this in mind we anaesthetised Daisy and, with slight trepidation, I incised over the lesion. More of what we found next week.

Alice Moore is a vet at Castle Veterinary Clinic, Dorchester and Weymouth. Tel 01305 267083