Pointer With Lump On Head

[tiff-689]

Hi All

I have a 7 month old female english pointer. We had had her for approx. a month now and i have noticed in this month since we've had her home, she has developed a very obvious and quite significant lump on the top of her head, directly in between her ears.

At first i thought it was the occipital bone, as i've heard pointers have quite a pronouced one, but the size of it was starting to concern me and i got it checked out by the vet. He was unsure what it was and said most likely a trauma to the head, which caused a hematoma. Said to wait 2 weeks and it should be gone. 2 weeks later it was still as prominent as before. I saw a different vet this time and she suggested that part of the occipital bone might have broken off and could be causing the lump there. She suggested an x-ray and asked if the dog has been having any kind of neurological problems. No neurological problems as such, but i have found that she is very hard to train and very slow to understand basic tasks. I have no idea if this is more personality or an underlining issue though....

Am just wondering if anyone has been through anything similar, and what the cause ended up being?

She is in no pain so the vet said it will be fine to wait a few weeks to make a decision on the x-ray.

I have pictures on my camera, that i will upload when i get home from work.

[Guest english.ivy]

Sounds like "the bump of knowledge" that Pointers have but I'd be getting an xray to make sure there is nothing going on in there. Hope it's nothing too bad.

My Pointer has a small bump of knowledge, compared to my other Pointers but he's still smart[ish]

[SwaY]

Does it look like this?

This was cause by a knock to the head - took a good 2 months to go down.

There was no fluid in it as we also tried to drain it.

I did have some ultrasound therapy on it, that helped.

[tiff-689]

Looks almost identical Sway, except Abbie's is a little more rounded i guess.

Here are some pictures..

Edited August 11, 2011 by tiff-689

[FionaC]

Looks like a knowledge bump to me, my oldest boy has a large one quite pointed too you can see his in my profile pic and in the pics below ... The younger one has a smaller bump ...

Im not great with regular pointers (mine are GSP's) so maybe head to the pointees thread and ask there just to double check its not something else though

Edited August 11, 2011 by FionaC

[Rileys mum]

My german shorthaired pointer also has a lump in that area but the one in your pic does look quite large. Not sure what else to suggest. Sounds like your on the right track and just need to wait and see i guess.

PS your pup is very very cute.

[KateAndDuke]

Interesting this came up. My weimaraner male has a prominent bump in the same spot. His isn't as big as your pointer's, but good to know there's a term for it. I don't have a very good picture of it. He's too fuzzy and his fur covers it.

Must be a gun dog thing. Interesting to hear what the vet has to say.

P.S. Nice photos. I like the photo with the other dog lying under the coffee table. My boy does the same thing

[SwaY]

The correct term is Occipital Bone.

Looks like it's caused by trauma to me, occipital bones appear more pointed then rounded like the pictures.

[persephone]

Looks like a bump on the noggin , from those photos .. poor girl.

[poochiemama]

My goldie had exactly the same thing, except much bigger. They drained some blood from it with a syringe and needle, sent it for microscopy etc. In the end, it was a haematoma - a collection of blood due to her hitting her head somewhere. It took many months to go down and even now, she still has a slight bump there, because the haematoma becomes fibrous/calcified and forms a small lump, even after the blood drains out of it. It's not painful, it's more of a cosmetic issue .

[Kiara&Heidi]

My goldie had exactly the same thing, except much bigger. They drained some blood from it with a syringe and needle, sent it for microscopy etc. In the end, it was a haematoma - a collection of blood due to her hitting her head somewhere. It took many months to go down and even now, she still has a slight bump there, because the haematoma becomes fibrous/calcified and forms a small lump, even after the blood drains out of it. It's not painful, it's more of a cosmetic issue .

Yes, my dog had a haematoma on her leg from surgery - it started off soft and now it has become hard (feels like bone), but it is a bit smaller than it was originally.

Interesting to know that the head bump is common enough to have a nickname.

[Her Majesty Dogmad]

Strangely enough I've just been through dealing with a large lump on a rescue dog's head (front on top) today. Giorgio is an Italian Greyhound that arrived in our care 3 weeks ago. He is 4 kilos and had an olive sized lump on his head. rushed him to the vet and she said to find out when it had happened. Pound staff said he'd hit his head the day before release, on a wooden kennel. Lump started to go down. It didn't completely disappear but suddenly on Tuesday, it ballooned up again, bigger than ever.

Today he had an ultrasound, needle aspiration and surgery. Lump was pus filled, no foreign objects found. He's got a lot of stitches and a plastic tube draining the lump.

Poor little man! Hoping this sorts it out, we can't rehome him until he's 100%.

Hope you can get to the bottom of the cause of your dog's lump.

[kazads]

My little great dane pup had the same thing from trauma to the head - we assume as he grew he bumped his head under tables he could no longer comfortably fit under!

Vet said that it did no damage to him and to wait and see if it goes down on its own before we decide if any treatment was necessary. There was a lot of fluid in the area. It did go down, but it was a slow process over a couple of months. All is now back to normal.

[tiff-689]

Thanks everyone I feel much more reassured now. I've never seen this type of problem before and didn't realise it could be so common! It's very likely that she has bumped her head. My other dog is a staffy and they play rough as guts with each other. More often that not it involves Abbie being slammed into a wall or window!

My Vet told me a hematoma should be gone within two weeks but i think I'll wait a another month and then make the decision about an x-ray if it's still there. It's odd..some days it's smaller and other days, back to original size..but it hasn't increased in size. Has absolutely no effect on her it would seem and i can press it really hard with no reaction from her.

Interesting my vet suggested an x-ray..everyone else seems to have had an ultrasound as the first point of call..

[OSoSwift]

I have seen many dogs with this condition. Many went down over time and it can take some time. Had one dog though that, goodness knows what he did, but he snapped a large piece off and that had to be removed. Was fine after a while - and I am talking a good few months.

Edited August 12, 2011 by OSoSwift

[becks]

My younger Giant Schnauzer managed to do this to herself too as a pup, it also took a long while to go back to normal. Natures way of cushioning the clumsy creature!