Hi wondering if anyone has seen this before...

My dog seems to get these small, zit like skin tags. They are often white in colour and a small hard fatty lump is inside. We are talking quite tiny 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch in size. He has had one between his shoulder blades, one on top of his hip, and I just found one on his front leg (where the front dew claw would be). I removed the first two.

I have looked at various dermatolagy sites and not found any pictures or descriptions matiching this.

Also near this spot on his front leg there is what looks to be a sliver or something (small 1/8 of an inch) black in colour. Seems to have grown over with skin. No infection or swelling. Should I be worried about it and remove it, or will the body take care of it. No wincing when I push on it.

Thanks,

sounds like a small sebaceous cyst - sometimes they stay small like you describe but they can get bigger. As long as they don't get infected they are something to keep an eye on but don't usually cause any problems unless it is in an area wear a harness or collar would rub, etc

Jennifer,
Our dog Buster used to get similar places on his skin - always on his belly. They were actually blackheads that you could get out with your fingernail. Sometimes they would fester up and get infected. The vet said that dogs with white hair and pink skin were more likely to have skin problems (from what I know now, I think that dogs that are fed poor-grade kibble are more likely to have a skin problem). One vet even said "not much we can do about this problem - guess you'll have to change his name to "Lumpy". I was NOT amused!

On two or three occasions the vet did a biopsy - was sebaceous cysts according to the report. Nothing that we did seemed to help (except changing his food which we did not have a clue about back then!).

He also had some skin cancer places nearer the groin area - those are dark red, almost black, raised up places - very small. The biopsy on those came back as hemangiosarcoma of the skin. After a couple of years, the hemangiosarcoma spread to his internal organs and he died last November of a ruptured spleen.

so sorry to hear about your loss,so hard to lose a pet,it took forever for me to stop crying over the loss of my charlie the cat
every little bump or redness i run to the vet,its always nothing ,but you never know,what if it is something bad