When we went for a walk last Sunday, I noticed that the outside toe of Titan's back left foot was swollen, and he had shifted his weight to accommodate it. He was still walking around quite happily and even nudging me along when I stopped to look at the aeroplane coming in to land.
When I dropped them off I had a closer look, and even with probing and moving it around a lot, he didn't moan. But he was licking it, which he does when something is irritating him, and so I knew it was sore.
We decided to give it a couple of days before taking him to the vet, because Titan is quite accident prone and most times his injuries heal within a few days.
But by Thursday it was still swollen and he was still keeping his weight off it - lifting his foot while eating. So my ex took him to the vet.
Not sure what he did, but it turns out the toe is broken in 6 places. And because it hadn't show any indication of healing on its own, he needed to have a pin inserted. This meant that he had to have an operation.
He had the operation on Friday, and was kept over night, arriving home this morning.
Since there will be no walks in the park for the next six to eight weeks (the average time for bones to heal), I went to visit them today.
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| Xray of the foot from underneath |
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| He also had a cyst removed from his side - the reason for the shaved patch |
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| Dudu in the sun |
He has a piece of PVC pipe as a splint, because he broke the original splint that they had put in - one for large dogs. I read up a lot about broken bones in the past two days. Breaking the splint is a common occurrence for the bigger dog breeds.
He will be going back to the vet every Saturday, to have the dressings changed. He will also have another xray in three weeks, to check on the progress.
