From quite a young age, Kriz had a lump on her back leg. I asked the vet at Cibyn to remove it, they declined, saying that not only would it be cosmetic, but that there was very little skin in the area to pull around for it to heal. Considering someone I knew had lost a bitch having a similar lump removed, I decided to leave it. Years later and the lump had grown, I'd changed vets and gone back to my original practice, and I asked a vets opinion on the lump. He agreed that it needed to come off and would do it when Krizzie was spayed in a few weeks. It all went ahead and everything was fine. Months later we lost Krizzie, she wasn't quite 7.5 years old.
I took her to the vets on a Sunday afternoon, she had a high temperature, a small mammary tumour and was off colour. I took her back on Tuesday as I was concerned that she wasn't eating and that she looked bloated - she didn't come home that day. The vet took a sample of the liquid in her abdomen and discovered it was blood, he opened her up to discover she had a tumour on her liver which had burst and was haemorrhaging into the abdomen. He couldn't believe she had been that "well." Stoic to the last was our Krizzie. I chose not to bring her out of the anaesthetic, as hard as it was for me not to say goodbye it would have been unfair on her. I remember vomiting in the toilet at the vets, I remember being told I was in no fit state to drive home and Sharon bought me home. Let's not forget this was our 4th loss in the second half of 2007. We'd lost Dexi, Seffe and Jay before her. I'm crying again now. 
Katrina's story was almost identical, but the bitch had a lump on her tail. She saw a different vet years later as the bitch had a small mammary tumour. The second vet agreed to removed the lump and the mammary tumour 2 weeks later, days before the surgery the bitch dropped dead. How very very odd. If it ever happens again I will insist on having the lump removed before it has time to grow.
Generally the bitch line is very health, other than Kriz, Seffe was the youngest to leave us at 11.5 years old, Nikki was 12, Asha not far off 13 and Tali was over 13. Of course we've had and lost other bitches, but they are not in the breeding line, Jezi was a few months short of 11, Storm sadly had a torsion and died of complications before she was 10, and Kiri was months short of 14 when we lost her. So yeah the bitches do well, I wonder what generally makes them live longer than the males? It's the same with people, I suppose!
If you feel brave then you may like to read about Krizzie
