Red cattle - 10 years - surgery suggested to remove lump

I took my boy to the vet yesterday - they tried to take a sample with a needle from a growth on his leg. The vet said it wasn't a good sample and it started to bleed; he said a technical term meaning the growth has its own blood supply. He gave me medication to sedate him and asked me to bring him in again on Friday. They have given me a quote for surgery to have the growth removed on Friday and sent away to confirm the stage and blood tests to see what might be causing his weight loss. Apart from the weight loss (he is 19kg at the moment) is in good health - dental fine, no vomiting, no gastro, eating fine, no other growths. He is almost 10 years old I don't want to put him under anaesthesia and go through a surgery without even knowing what we are dealing with. Should I try and get a sample tested with another vet?

Hello - I think that the defining question here is whether they can explain the cause of your dogs' weight-loss.   He is eating fine - so what is making him lose weight?   To what extent?  Are his kidneys and liver doing their job?  Could he have diabetes or cancer?  It is not a common response to a simple skin lump, although dogs with mast cell tumours sometimes have early systemic ('dog wide effects').    Establishing the cause of the weight loss before any anaesthetic is given,  may be extremely important and may even turn out to be far more significant  than the lump.   They might also glean or have gleaned more information from a urine sample and / or their examination. Wishing you both well at this time.

Hmm I see your question of whether to get the sample tested with another vet and am unclear on what grounds.   If a vet is struggling to sample (aspirate) a very vascular lesion, I would expect that to say more about the lesion than the vet.  We have all struggled to get a good aspiration sample at times.  In general, biopsies are preferred over aspirates.  Your vet might want to understand the cause of your dogs' weight loss before diving in, - and this might turn out to be far more important - but it sounds as though that is what they are planning to do.  I have no way of knowing whether you can trust your vet from here, but it's always a good idea to chat to your vet about your concerns and see whether trust can be reestablished.