On the evening of 25 June 2003, we went out to do a few errands. Upon our return home about 30 minutes later, the living room, kitchen, and dining room were covered in bright red blood. Then we discovered one of our glass-topped coffee tables was shattered. After thoroughly checking the dogs, we discovered Aggie had a deep gash in the underside of the pastern of her right foreleg. She was whisked off to the vet where they stabilized her and performed surgery to clean the wound and repair the damage. Her surgery was over around midnight and she came home late the next morning with a spoon splint securely attached, and instructions for her to keep it on for 6-8 weeks!
Aggie is such a good girl, she seemed to understand that she was not supposed to go up or down stairs, and patiently waited for us to carry her. Keeping her from jumping and running was a bigger challenge! She never once chewed her bandage, and generally hobbled around carefully. Her first bandage change was 30 June 2003 (see photo below) and the vet made sure she was ready for the upcoming Fourth of July holiday!
We'll keep this page up to date as Aggie embarks on physical therapy in the near future. Fortunately, we have been put in touch with someone with a dog of a different breed that sustained a very similar, though worse, type of injury. She has given us great hope, as that dog is now competing in agility and is beginning herding practice.
WEEK TWO: Aggie had her stitches taken out 7 July 2003 (what a trooper!) and the skin wound is healing well. Now she has a purple splint! The vet says she can do stairs on her own now, but she will still have the splint for at least 2 more weeks. He hopes not longer, because of the risk of Aggie developing dermatitis, but he feels she is healing very well and two more weeks should do it. After that, we will be work on physical therapy, hopefully some swimming, and start with short walks to get Aggie's leg back in shape. She has gained almost 2 pounds in the past 2 weeks (up to 49.3 pounds) due to her confinement, but the vet says she needs the nutrition to help the leg heal, and to not restrict her calories much at all. Once Aggie gets up to moving around again, we will do our best to keep her on the lean side so that she won't have any undue stress on that leg.
Due to computer problems I was unable to keep a regular posting of Aggie's progress. She recovered nicely, though developed metritis/pyometria in early November 2003 and had to be emergently spayed. She had 27 staples from her chest on down! Once Aggie recovered from that surgery, we began agility training again in January 2004. Aggie finished her AKC NJP in March and earned her first leg towards an AKC Open agility title the same day! Then she went on to finish her OAP in August and OJP in September that same year. I'd say she's fully recovered.
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Aggie's daughter, Bechelle injured the accessory carpal pad on her left foreleg several times in a 3 year time period. We never figured out how she cut it, but twice it was sliced open and bleeding a lot, and always happened while playing outside. Finally, it was stitched shut while Bechelle was under anesthesia on February 4th, 2007. Here is a photo of her the day after the surgery.
