My 12-yr-old dog has symptoms. Should I give medication or see a vet?

I'm very sorry you are dealing with this. At this point, you should discuss quality of life issues with your veterinarian. Friday may be able to get an antibiotic injection that, hopefully, would not cause stomach upset. If your veterinarian is unavailable due to the holiday, consider a visit to the local veterinary ER. After an exam, the vet on staff could recommend a different antibiotic or an injection.

Unfortunately, without an exam it would be impossible to determine what medication is best, and medication can't be prescribed without an exam anyway. A skin scraping of the affected skin areas to see if it is mange, bacterial, etc, can help determine what treatment to give. Bloodwork to rule out other health issues that also need to be treated is also best.

i am afraid these could be benign or malignant tumors. Since Nealy is an older dog, this is not uncommon. Lipomas (fatty tumors, usually benign, they can actually be hard) or mast cell tumors come to mind when looking at your photos. It could also be a very extreme allergic reaction to possibly a shampoo at the groomers. 1) do not panic 2) make an appointment with your veterinarian for an exam. He will likely want to take a so-called FNA (Fine Needle Biopsy) where he takes a small amount of tissue through an injection needle, puts this on a glass plate and looks at it under the microscope. This will give your vet an idea what he is dealing with. He may also send this material to a lab to be examined. Once you and dyour veterinarian know what type of mass you are dealing with , you can discuss treatment plans.

It sounds like he should be examined by a vet to determine the cause and treat. He could have an infection and may need an antibiotic to treat. Please schedule an appointment with your vet, especially since he seems to be in pain.

Oh my. Poor Chillidog. This appears to be a really bad bacterial infection and not a yeast infection in my professional opinion. Perhaps even a Staphylococcus infection. You should request from your vet to have a culture done of the skin so that you know what antibiotic will resolve this. And because if your pets age, a look at underlying causes is highly recommmended if there was no trauma to he skin hat may have caused this. The infection appears deep so I actually would not recommend continuing the topical antibiotic if this were my patient. Oral antibiotics are a must! I also would recommend an Elizabethan collar to prevent any licking or chewing, which will only make this worse. I really hope you can get a handle on Chillidogs skin infection quickly. Best of luck.

Remember, at 16 years old he is very elderly (close to 90 in human years) so many things can start to fail. You really need to take him to a vet for evaluation. Since he is elderly there is nothing we can safely recommend over the internet without examining him ourselves. I'm sorry we can't be of more assistance.

Some medications might help. Antibiotics and pain killers (anti-inflammatories) can definitively improve his condition clearing up mouth infection. Symptomatic treatment for vomiting might help as well. I would recommend to have him on a bland diet based on boiled chicken and rice. Please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further.