  In order to guide the extrapolation of the mass of the rho meson calculated
in lattice QCD with dynamical fermions, we study the contributions to its
self-energy which vary most rapidly as the quark mass approaches zero; from the
processes $\rho \to \omega \pi$ and $\rho \to \pi \pi$. It turns out that in
analysing the most recent data from CP-PACS it is crucial to estimate the
self-energy from $\rho \to \pi \pi$ using the same grid of discrete momenta as
included implicitly in the lattice simulation. The correction associated with
the continuum, infinite volume limit can then be found by calculating the
corresponding integrals exactly. Our error analysis suggests that a factor of
10 improvement in statistics at the lowest quark mass for which data currently
exists would allow one to determine the physical rho mass to within 5%.
Finally, our analysis throws new light on a long-standing problem with the
J-parameter.
