You Learn Something New Every Day
Wed, Jun 17, 2009
When we got Oscar trimmed last week he came home with his hair cut pretty close to the skin. Â This will allow him to stay cool during the upcoming summer months, which I’m sure he will appreciate. Â It also allowed us to see all the things that his fur had been hiding like his long fingernails and the little bumps on his stomach. Â I had noticed these bumps before, ever since he was a puppy. Â Most people may not notice such things, but since I have been taught to monitor the moles or freckles on my own fair skin, I’ve always been aware of his little spots. Â
So when his fresh haircut showed us the mole that had suddenly turned black, I was alarmed. Â I don’t know much about moles or bumps, but I do know that changing color or shape is not good. Â I know this because when a mole I had beneath my skin had started changing colors after years of benign existence, I had to have it removed and several stitches put in its place. Â
The memory of this incident stirred me into action and I told the CPA that we needed to take Oscar to the vet. Â Which is why I spent 50 minutes waiting in the vet’s office after work last night. Â Fifty minutes of worry over this little mole that I just knew was cancerous, which meant that Oscar would need a biopsy and then surgery and finally a CAT scan (or perhaps a DOG scan?) to make sure the cancer hadn’t spread to other organs. Â
With this diagnosis firmly in my mind, you can imagine my surprise when the doctor took one look at Oscar’s bump and said,
“Oh, that’s not a mole, that’s his teat.” Â Â
“I’m sorry, his what?”
I don’t know if it’s just because I find the word “teat” hysterically funny or because I was so surprised to learn that Oscar had one (actually, he has six of them). Â But either way, I was momentarily stunned. Â
“You mean it’s not a mole? Â A mole that has cancer and needs to be removed?”
“Oh no, it’s just one of his teats, or nipples, and the black stuff is probably some bacteria. Â We’ll just clean it off and then you can put this ointment on it for a few days and he’ll be good.”
I still couldn’t wrap my brain around this. Â Moments earlier I had thought my dog was dying and now I found out he had nipples. Â I didn’t know which was more upsetting. Â So I asked the doc, “Just to clarify: boy dogs have nipples?”
“Of course! Â Guys have nipples too, don’t they? Â Why would boy dogs be any different?”
Point taken. Â
I guess you learn something new every day!
I have to ask: Did you know that boy dogs have nipples? Â Do you take your pet to the vet when you see something that looks different than normal?
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June 17th, 2009 at 3:51 am
haha, that it too funny! cute oscar. i love that you just discovered that about him.
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June 17th, 2009 at 3:55 am
I didn’t know that boy dogs have nipples. We’ve always had girl dogs and I’ve never noticed on my friends’ dogs. Interesting.
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June 17th, 2009 at 4:11 am
–>I have had dogs all my life and just recently realized that males have “teats” as well. Hilarious!
I asked my stepson once why men had nipples when he was younger and he shrugged and said, “for squeezing?” Now that was a funny response from a then 10-year-old.
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June 17th, 2009 at 4:28 am
Funny! I’m glad it’s not something terrible.
-FringeGirl
June 17th, 2009 at 5:27 am
HAHAHAHA!!! I nearly snorted my tea. I … never really thought about it, I guess. We’ve always had girl dogs. But the vet makes a good point
June 17th, 2009 at 6:11 am
I didn’t know this about boy dogs either until the last time our Copper went to the vet and I asked the exact same question! then I thought to myself, “well, duh! Human boys have ‘em too” I learned yesterday how much I really like my own car – as silly as that sounds – I guess we get used to our things and don’t realize who much we like them till we have to use something else. My rental Jeep Wrangler – I don’t want to own a vehicle that large…I just don’t, I’ll take my VW Bug any day!
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June 17th, 2009 at 6:26 am
I have a boxer, who has very short hair all the time and very little hair at all on his underside. This knowledge of nipples was well known to me, since day one he’s been prancing around like a naked toddler just out of the shower.
Better safe than sorry though!
June 17th, 2009 at 6:53 am
That was too funny!!! I had no idea but it makes perfect sense. Just one of those things that don’t cross you mind in every day thoughts. What a great dog-Mommy you are!!! And as a dog-Nana, I’m really thankful you’re so good at taking care of Oscar. He’s such a cutie.
June 17th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Haha! Okay, I knew that male dogs had teats/nipples too, but only because I did something similar. Last year, when we were installing our floor, our cats kept shedding long fur everywhere and it was a hassle to constantly try to pluck it out from between the floorboards. So we shaved their fur down ourselves so that it would be more manageable.
They looked ridiculous, but that’s another story.
Anyway, we were very careful with Anastacia’s teats, but it had never occurred to us that Forrest and Sebastian would have them too, so when we got to Sebastian, we accidentally nicked him. Poor guy! =( We took him to the vet immediately because I was POSITIVE we’d nicked a tumor and the vet pretty much called us morons and sent us on our way.
It makes sense, I guess, but really, who’d've thunk?!
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June 17th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Oops! That’s very interesting. I grew up with boy dogs, but I didn’t know they had nipples. Though it does make sense! I’ll have to keep that in mind now that I have a boy dog with long hair.
I’m paranoid about my dogs… something looks out of place or they act abnormal than usual, the vet gets called! I would rather be safe than sorry since they can’t tell me what’s wrong themselves.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:34 am
That is hilarious. And only because the story turned out so well.
I’m so sorry you went through all that anxiety and emotion for nothing! 
I have taken my dog to the vet for a wierd patch on her hind leg where the fur is gone. I thought it was something eating her fur away, turns out that one of the vaccines that they gave her just changed the pigment in her skin and caused her to lose the fur in that area.
What we do for our animals.
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June 17th, 2009 at 8:38 am
You made my morning with this story! I needed a good chuckle.
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June 17th, 2009 at 10:25 am
I got a good chuckle too! Of course boy dogs have nipples! But it’s good to see that you’re not alone in this questioning!!! And good for you to be so vigilant about checking your skin and Oscar’s!
June 17th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Oh, poor Oscar! I think I did know they had nipples? Maybe?
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June 17th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Ha ha! Too funny.
We adopted a “female” kitten from the Humane Society many years ago and when we took her to get fixed at 6 months, learned from the vet that she was a he! He/She has very fluffy fur that covers everything and the testes never descended, so without the “inflated” parts, even the two vets thought he was a she. We all felt very silly. We had named her/him Olive, and had gotten used to calling her/him that with a feminine pronoun, so even after finding all this out, we continue to refer to her/him in a feminine way to this day, 8 years later. It is very confusing at the vets office.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:45 am
This made me laugh, which I needed after having computer problems all morning at work! Thanks
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June 17th, 2009 at 11:55 am
I did not know boy dogs had nipples! As you said (or the vet said!) it makes sense. We always had girl dogs, so it never really occurred to me otherwise.
Now that you mention it, Woody has a couple little bumps that I always thought were strange little moles, but maybe they are his teats too. If human boys have them, why not boy cats?
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June 17th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Ha! YES! The same thing happened when Schnitzel was a puppy. He had very dry skin, and it would get pink when he scratched it. At one point I thought that he had some nasty flea bites, or some other bug infestation, all over his stomach. Took him to the vet only to find out that they were his little nipples, inflamed from the dryness!
Oy, feels a little silly, eh?
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June 17th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Um, I have to admit that, yes, I did know boy dogs had teats. What I don’t know is what they’re good for but isn’t that what we’re ALL gonna ask God when we get there? And yes, certain things are alarming. When Minky looked me in the face Monday with a huge muzzle and swollen eyes, you know where I headed. Benadryl and a steroid shot aborted a serious reaction to wasp stings. I just HOPE she learned!!!!!
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June 17th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
I did the same thing!
We’d been fostering our dog for nearly a week, in and out of the vet addressing all the health problems he developed from being out in the wild eating whatever he could find, and then from being in the kill shelter before a kind soul thought to call American Brittany Rescue and save him.
Anyway, I’d grown up with male shelties, and they had so much fur that I’d never really paid much attention to their bellies before. Seeing as how he’d been out in the wild, I was just sure that he had ticks. Of course, the vet set us straight. But he did also have skin allergy issues at the time, so at least our trip to the vet wasn’t for nothing!
June 17th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Hahaha, that is just too funny. Glad he’s ok!!
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June 17th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Bawwhahaha, LOL!!
June 17th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Sorry that was just too funny!
June 18th, 2009 at 1:27 am
That is funny! I had no idea about the boy nipples, but it makes perfect sense. I just have never thought about it. All the dogs I have had have been hairy on their chest/stomach or I have never really looked. You do learn something new every day. Thanks for sharing.
June 18th, 2009 at 8:13 am
OMG!!! I had to laugh out loud when he said that was his Teat!! Yes I knew male dogs had nipples, just like men. That is so funny!
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June 18th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Shoot. I’ll bet that wasn’t a cheap lesson.!
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June 18th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I wondered the same thing when I found out my male cat has nipples. Two wouldn’t surprise me; but, to this day I still wonder, why six?
To answer your other question… I do take my cat to the vet at the first sign of trouble – but I don’t run him into the vet excessively because I worry about Bing catching something there. It’s just something I worry about after working at an animal shelter when I was a teenager.
Glad to know Oscar is okay!
June 19th, 2009 at 9:58 am
This was a good laugh! (Sorry) I wished we lived closer so I could be a little more helpful. This sort of speaks to having your first dog. Just a good “rule of thumb” – they are not too different from humans.I do applaud you for not taking any chances. I would have done the same thing because they are just too precious to us.
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June 19th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Oh my god! I have such a funny story about my pug’s nipples!
One of the first times my Oma dog-sat Cubbie for me (back when he was a pup) she thought he had “sores” on his belly. She read somewhere (probably in Ladies Home Journal) that Listerine helps heal sores, so she started dabbing Listerine on Q-tips and rubbing them all over Cubbies nipples.
When I got back into town and swung by her place to pick him up, she said: “Cubbie’s got dees little sores on his belly, but I’ve been cleaning them with Listerine.”
“Listerine?! Where the hell did you read that? And sores? He has sores on his belly?”
“Yaw. Look here and here,” she said, pointing to two black nipples.
“Oma, those are his NIPS!”
She was so embarrassed. It was so cute.
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