Lacerated toe pad - Page 2

**Burns** · 06-13-2008, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Santa

The glue sounds like a good idea but Spain is usually a bit backwards in these kinds of things!

That's too bad, it seems like it would take forever to heal and would be more painful if it was left open.

Red's cut seems to be doing ok so far. We went to the pet store and then he ran around in the yard a bit while I looked for more glass. I did end up finding about 6 more pieces since the last rain..

The glue seems to be holding up ok. The one part on the inside keeps wanting to reopen so I keep reapplying a bit more glue. I'm going to keep him in for awhile now and hopefully rest it.

Here's some pics of it. You should've saw it before I glued it - the cut was about 1 cm deep!

Santa · 06-13-2008, 03:36 PM

Yep, Zac's tend to look just like that, but that one's pretty jagged, whereas his tend to look split. They don't seem to bother him though.

**dobermansrule** · 06-13-2008, 03:38 PM

Ouch.. Hurts to look at it.. poor guy. Hope it heals up fast.

**Burns** · 06-15-2008, 08:51 PM

The glue won't hold it together - I think because of the weight bearing, it just splits apart again. So I've just been flushing it out with warm saline twice a day and putting triple antibiotic ointment in it.

He doesn't limp or act like it bothers him, but it's a bummer because he can't go swimming in the pond like he likes to do on our walks. It's going to be a long time before I let him do that again.

Tonight I'm going to try some Collasate which is a post surgical dressing ointment that is supposed to speed up tissue healing and granulation. I'll have to put a bootie on him so he doesn't walk or lick it off - plus it's really sticky and would make a mess. I'm sure he's going to love wearing the bootie

Here are some pics I just took - you can kinda see in the second one how deep it is.

And a video of how good he is when I'm flushing it and doctoring him up. He's a good sport

**Jenny** · 06-15-2008, 09:10 PM

He is such a trooper - it looks like it hurts. Hope it heals quickly.

robinb · 06-15-2008, 10:07 PM

My boy Baron cut his but not that deep. It took a few weeks to heal. Poor boy, but he has a great Mom to doctor him! Get well Red.

**berkshire** · 06-15-2008, 10:20 PM

The only one I got to see that was that deep ended up needing sutures. They did a subcutaneous pattern with PDS, and then used Ethilon on the outside. The subQ pattern helped it hold together better - but it still needed a bootie to protect the ethilon sutures on the outside. We didn't pull them until a full 14 days later, but the pad finally healed.

Santa · 06-16-2008, 03:01 AM

Wow, that is deep! The only time we had one that deep it did have to have stitches. Might be worth doing in this case or it could take ages to heal. Poor baby.

**Burns** · 06-16-2008, 04:10 PM

Thanks everyone, and thanks berkshire for the detailed info in the PM.

I've talked it over with the doctor at my clinic and she thinks if I am aggressive in my treatment of it, it will heal ok by second intention.

Since the surgical glue isn't holding it together, I'm putting him on antibiotics (Clavamox) and pain meds (buprenorphine and Metacam), and will start soaking two to three times a day, debriding it with gauze/cotton swabs to encourage epithelial cell production and granulation, and applying small amounts of triple antibiotic ointment and collasate. The bootie I had on him last night didn't last, he pulled it off sometime in the night.. probably just after I fell asleep, lol. So I ordered him a longer sock that I can tape on him for our runs - I have to get him out of the house regularly or he gets stir crazy and drives us insane. Plus I have his CGC test scheduled for next week and I want to continue practicing for it.

If I was a regular client, and couldn't do the aggressive home care/treatments, I probably would have to get it sutured. But we'll see.. I'm going to try this first and see how it goes.

Thanks for all your support and comments, it means a lot

I will be updating this thread and let you know if my treatment plan works out or not.

**dobermansrule** · 06-16-2008, 04:20 PM

since you've posted detailed pics, you've got me thinking about this - so pardon the noise while I think out loud...

each pad/toe is unique, ie space in between them. It seems to me there would be a way to put a covering over just the affected pad, you know like a finger cot of sorts.

or, it looks like you need a way to keep the wound pressed together in between treatments - I mean sutures pull the pieces together and physically hold them together until they heal, but what would be a way to hold it together without sutures? it seems there would be a band or something you could wrap around the pad itself to keep pressure on it, basically encouraging the the section to stay in contact.

but I'm not a vet and these might be bad ideas. The engineer in me... all the best though..