Friday, June 1, 2007

What a start to the weekend!

Poor Ayla! I took her to a grassy dog park after work today and play. She was doing very well with the other dogs, playing fetch, trotting around, etc. All of a sudden she cried out and wouldn't come to me. She was holding up her paw and I realized her dewclaw was perpendicular to her leg! It was bleeding like crazy too, and other dogs were swarming around Ayla, a nice lady asking if she was okay. I got her out of there and went to her vet.

She was panting and starting to drool from pain, and didn't even do her usual wiggle when her old trainer came to say hi. While waiting in the exam room I held her in my lap to keep her still and after a while she started to relax and even nod off. They kept her for a few hours where they put her under light anesthesia and took care of the nail. Now she's home with a bandage, orders to stay calm for a few days, and antibiotics. :(

No swimming or hiking this weekend. Now I have to figure out how to keep an adolescent dog calm once she wakes up from the drugs. I know she'll like the pills though; I wrap them in cream cheese and she goes crazy for them. She licks her lips when you shake the pill bottle or say cheese. :)

I hope your weekend is starting off better than ours!

2 comments:

Liz and Kurt said...

what the heck is a dewclaw? Is it the part of the paw that's up higher than the rest? How did she mess that up? Our neighbors brown lab got off her leash today and came over to play with our dogs. Molly was having a great old time, jumping around and playing. Bear and Spot didn't really like that too much, they were trying to attack her, but she didn't know that and she just kept on playing. It was really funny. Molly's owner wasn't very happy, apparently obedience school isn't working out all that well. Hee hee.

Misty said...

Yeah, its like a "thumb" nail, higher up on the leg. I don't know how she did it, but its fairly common. Many times dewclaws are removed when they're puppies.