On Friday morning I was letting the dogs out at Widget's House and had just reached Timmy's crate when I noticed drops of blood on the floor outside his crate door. As I opened the crate, I could see the paw on his crippled leg was a bloody mess. He had blood dripping down his mouth and chest, and as he sat there, waiting to spring out of the crate, blood dripped off the paw as he held his leg up in the air.
Hmm.
Once I got him cleaned up, I realized what had happened. He had started chewing on his foot, a case of self-mutilation. This development meant only one thing: That leg was now starting to bother him. Whether he has odd tingling from nerve sensations (our vets were pretty sure he has radial nerve damage), or it was turning painful, we don't know, but clearly — and quite suddenly — it got his attention, and not in a good way.
I called our vet clinic in Helena and spoke to Dr. Jennifer Rockwell, who had treated Timmy for his heartworms two weeks ago. We had already planned to have his leg amputated, but because of the heartworm treatment the surgery was postponed for a month or two. Now we were going to have to do the surgery sooner than expected. Fortunately, Timmy has tolerated the heartworm treatment very well, and given his age, energy and overall physical condition, his risk profile is lower than it might otherwise be.
So Jennifer told me what to give him in the way of two different broad-spectrum antibiotics and pain medication, and I explained what I had done to address his wounds and how I bandaged his foot. Basically, we were going to provide the same level of care for him this weekend that the clinic would have done anyway until they could get surgery scheduled for this coming week.
To keep him from pulling the bandage off and gnawing on his foot some more, Timmy also got to wear a cone all weekend long. Now, every time I post a photo of a dog wearing one of these cones, someone always asks whether we know about the soft e-collars and the other assorted ones on the market. Yes, we do. And we have them all. But each type has its purpose and some are more effective than others — and some don't work at all — depending on the location of the wound or surgery site. And clever dogs, for instance, can figure out how to manipulate the soft e-collars and bend them back. (Which is why Widget gets a hard plastic cone.) For a highly energetic and intelligent dog like Timmy with a paw wound, the hard plastic e-collar is the best way to keep him from getting to the paw.
The interesting question — and this is where it would be so helpful if they could talk to us! — is what changed to cause Timmy to do this? Did it suddenly start feeling weird? Did it start to hurt? I wish we knew.
—
Please
keep voting
for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge — and you can
vote every day! We're currently in fourth place and still on
track to
win $3,000 for the animals, but every vote counts! We just slipped from
third place to fourth, so please help round up as many votes as you can
so we can stay in the running for the $3,000. Ask your family and
friends to vote for the ranch, too!
Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and
our state
postal code,
MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.
Vote
in the Shelter Challenge here.
Last
year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand
Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and
make for
a wonderful gift for the animals here.
Thank you!
Rolling Dog Farm Blog 
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