Hello. I'm afraid that we're not on the business of recommending vets outside the scope of the 'Find a Vet's feature on our website. However, I find it surprising that a vet will not anaesthetise your dog because of their age. Age is information about an animal to be sure and animals are more likely to accumulate illnesses as they get older (after about 6 months), but the number says nothing about their fitness to undergo a GA; I have met 6 month old dogs I would not anaesthetise and have anaesthetised dogs much older than eleven. Therefore your question to your vet should be, what is it about your dog that, in their opinion, would make a GA unsafe in this case? Cryosurgery is painful - that's where in the skin all the nerves are - and movement could cause difficulties, so it is good practice not to refuse to perform it under sedation unless the animal can be kept very still and pain-free, which probably means that local anaesthesia and nerve blocks would also have to be employed and the patient would have to be suitably relaxed in the vets. A GA is often thought to be objectively safer than heavy sedation. I also wonder whether your pet may have underlying conditions too bad to merit this for a procedure that your vet believes to be cosmetic eg if the lump may be unlikely to medically affect your dog in their lifetime. Again, I know nothing about what your vet has done to stage this lump or whether or not they know that it isn't cancerous, so it's hard for me to say out of context. Therefore, it sounds as though your vet should explain to you
- The risks of removing the lump under GA
- The risks of removing the lump without GA
- The benefits of removing the lump
- Any relevant conditions that your dog might have
And thereby review the options. If they do feel that cryosurgery is the best way forwards, they ought to be the ones to research local practitioners and refer your dog for it.
Please do let us know how you get on.
