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Old December 5th, 2006, 06:07 PM
horst van bongs horst van bongs is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: santa cruz, ca
Posts: 4
dog's foot injury - lame toe - Answered by Dr. Van Lienden

i have a VERY active, 3yo GSD (german sheperd dog). my wife and i have had ranger for a year now, in which time he has seriously injured his feet three times.

most recently he punctured the skin on his underfoot between his toes and heel pad. it was a good sized puncture, about the diameter of a pencil. it bled profusely at first, but i was able to stop the bleeding within 5 minutes or so. we made the decisiion not to take him to the pet emergency, as the bleeding had stopped, the wound was fairly clean and he hadn't broken any bones. on to our well rehearsed regimen of injured foot care.

first i irigated the wound and bandaged it carefully. no foreign objects, nothing from the inside poking out. i don't think he had tendon damage, as this would be extremly painful (?). i put him on a course of amoxicillin - 500mg twice a day for a week, kept his foot bandaged and clean, and had him take it easy.

its been two weeks now and the wound has almost healed completely. there is still a small area which is scabbed over, but the wound is had mostly healed with no infection and it doesn't seem to be bothering him too much. still no running, but we are going for walks in the grass.

what i'm worried about is his toe. his middle toe, the one above where he was injured, is somewhat lame. it flops above his other toes, and he doesn't seem to have much muscle control over it.

i am hoping that this as he uses his foot more he will regain muscle control over his toe. he is walking with a very slight limp, but it is not slowing him down. as i mentioned earlier, this limp could be due to the fact that his foot is still not completely healed.

is this something i should be concerned with? am i a fool for not taking him to the vet sooner?
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