my dog is limping and an x-ray showed a black spot, can it be cancer?

my dog has been limping for several days so we decided to take her to the hospital and they took an x-ray of he front left paw and discovered a black spot on her bone but her bone looks healthy says the vet. The vet sent her some medication and told us to come back within a week to check on the bone again. If its cancer than we have to amputate her leg. I was wondering if there was any web site that I can check out.

I'm sorry for your dogs injury. I just had to put my dog down a week ago due to seizures caused by a cancerous brain tumor. I actually was treating my dog for a similar situation. My dog had Ostyomylitis. Not sure if that's spelled right. It's an infection caused by stepping on a nail or something of that matter that infects the bones. It's a bone eating bacteria. X-rays show a "haze" next to the bones where it is eating it. After a few weeks of expensive antibiotics "clindamycin" it virtually disappeared. I hope this is all it is for you. If in fact your dog does have cancer, I would suggest you "stage" the cancer and see where all it has spread if it in fact has. It does no good amputating a leg when it has spread. You'll just be left with a 3 legged dog that still has cancer. Malignant melanomas can often appear in the paws first. That's what my buddy had, but it started in his mouth....another common area. The only way to tell if it is cancerous is to do a biopsy of it. If it comes back malignant, I would ask for staging before amputating. See where all it has spread. Once it reaches the lymph nodes it goes on a whirlwind and spreads to the lungs, brain and other organs. This could be a costly situation. Probably around $50 for each biopsy they do to see if that organ is cancerous. If it is cancerous and staging shows it hasn't spread, I would amputate the leg. Be prepared for alot of money being spent. If you're interested in canine cancer, just type in canine cancer in the web browser. It's loaded with information. There's not one page that just answered all of my questions. Everyone is a little different. Hopefully this is just a bacteria that will be wiped out soon and no worries from here on out. If not, do as much research as possible. You owe it to your buddy.Just a quick note: Most bone cancer occurs at the top of the shoulder blade in the arms and works its way down to the paw. If I were a betting man....I would think that your dog just has an infection of some kind that could easily be treated with antibiotics. My Clindamycin was about $75 for a months worth. I would have gladly paid that every month for years to keep my old bud around. Usually a months dose will take care of the infections. Good luck and I hope everything is fine.

Bone cancer doesn't show up on an X-Ray as a black spot .... it looks like grey shadows and if far along, the bone will look moth-eaten where the cancer is.I've lost a dog to bone cancer, and so has several of my friends. It is very common in larger breeds of dogs with long bones.If it is bone cancer, do think long and hard before you start throwing thousands of dollars away doing an amputation and chemo. This rarely buys you more than an extra couple months if you are lucky. The cure rate for bone cancer is less that 2% - even if caught early. Most people I know try to give the dog a good quality of life with pain meds until the cancer spreads to the lungs. I hope you will not be faced with this hard decision.