Maui injured

ECIN said:

Morning Up-Date ?

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we’re just getting settled after getting up, pottying, breakfast and meds.

he slept most of the night as he was given injectable pain meds to set the bones and was pretty groggy. We slept on two Big barker dog beds(thanks Sully❤) pushed together on the floor next to his daytime crate because they didn’t want us to put a cone on him after the sedation but we needed to make sure he didn’t chew his splint. He got me up to go poop around 4 and finally peed at 6. He’s struggling to squat with the big splint. When he got up at 6 he was a normal happy wiggly puppy which was relieving bc he was pretty down before…probably just the sedation. He ate a good amount of kibble and had his meds. He’s currently playing with several new Toys that I had just ordered and thankfully they came in yesterday. I’m waiting for my vets office to open for a follow up, fortunately they have an orthopedic doctor on staff.
Right now my biggest concern is how the cast is going to affect the rest of his body and growing joints as it’s big, cumbersome, goes past his elbow and is longer than his other leg and he can’t walk normal with it so I’m sure it’s putting torque on his other joints.

CF, so sorry about your boy's injury. Glad you got him treated so promptly. Did they say the reason for the huge cast? Maybe you'll find out why at follow-up appt. and how long it'll be on for? Don't know if they reapply new casts on dogs like they do now on humans? I'm sure Bug will chime in as she works at a vet's office.

When I had my ankle tendon surgery after the first cast, they would cut it off and put on another as swelling when down, then another and another. That hard-cast stuff they use now is really good and easy to remove and reapply anew. Back in the "old days" I had a broken wrist in HS and wore a full thick, heavy plaster cast from hand to upper arm for the full 6-weeks. As arm swelling went down it was loose then skin started drying out and flaking and itching- it was excruciating!

I'm so sorry to read this - try not to beat yourself up. Freak accidents happen, and we can't keep them in a bubble. I know of quite a few puppies who have fairly similar injuries.

My Richter broke a toe right across the growth plate when he was a pup...probably around 6 months old at the time? He also was splinted. I felt terrible about it! All he was doing was literally running in our yard...I still have no idea what happened.

The only advice I have over a decade later is that I wish I had had the opportunity to consult with a specialist. While Richter's toe did heal "fine", he did end up with some arthritis later in life there. I think with the intervention of our rehab/sports medicine vet we may have done something differently as it was healing. Unfortunately, I didn't know her at the time, so we just splinted it and changed the splint frequently - he was growing super fast! That said, he truly did fine, and even with the arthritis he's almost 11 now and does pretty darn well. So don't stress TOO much! Maui will be okay!

Here's baby Richter in his cast lo those many years ago...

@spocksdad they didn’t say why the cast was so big, maybe it has to be or maybe that’s all they had? Either way I have an appointment with the orthopedic vet at our office on Tuesday morning (first day she’s in).

@MeadowCat thanks for the reassurance, it’s so hard to not to feel guilty, I’m supposed to protect him and I failed. I haven’t been letting them play munch and not at all in the yard but my husband has, he said they’ve been doing great outside, much better in the house But I know they need to get used to each other and we can’t keep them separated completely so I thought it would be ok….he may have come down on an edge of hole and rolled it (Rizzo rips grass out in chunks to get to the yummy roots) but honestly it happened so fast and shouldn’t have been a big deal. She wasn’t being mean or nasty or even that crazy she just bowed and he jumped on her and she lifted her head to get him off her and flipped him, he just landed wrong I guess. Rizzo sprained a toe, broke two toes and the bone where her dew claw used to be, the same way Rochter did, just running in the yard. She didn’t need a split or anything, it healed just fine, the sprained one sticks out a bit but doesn’t bother her at all. I’ll definitely talk to the vet about some rehabilitation therapy for him.I’m really worried he’s going to catch the splintand fall with his leg backwards and hurt his shoulder…crate rest, leash walks for potty and calm pi of crate time with toys/bones/kings…although he’s being kind of a jerk out of his crate I’m sure a combo of the pain meds and frustration isn’t helping.
Surviving raising a puppy is hard enough…this is going to be hell.
I finally got the X-rays downloaded
First two are before casting, second two are after.

We don't have an on staff ortho vet--so with really significant injuries we send them down to an e-hospital that has orthos, and neurologists--the after care is not usually done by us either.

But as far as I know they do change the casts frequently for puppies--as the swelling goes down and the normal growth occurs the cast has to be changed. Looks like they did a pretty good job getting those toes back into normal position. Geeze that must have been a really painful break.

What little I know about treatment for this kind of injury is that the casts are so long to keep muscles and ligaments from pulling the repair work apart--keeping everything in place so that it heals correctly. And--puppies heal a lot faster from this kind of injury than adults do.

Poor Maui--keep us posted on how this comes along with him. Unfortunately there just isn't a fast way to heal this kind of injury.

dobebug