I’d just finished training the dogs and had sat down for half an hour to answer some emails. All the dogs were napping and peacehad filled the house. 

Of course this was the point when Bluey hobbled out of his crate for a cuddle. Completely non weight-bearing on his front right leg. As you can imagine all peaceful feelings were immediately gone and I turned into the average worried pet owner.

Firstly I ask all my other dogs to go to bed (their crates) so I am left with Bluey out by himself. I don’t like it if my sore leg gets jumped on, so its only fair to prevent this happening to Bluey. It’s also a lot easier to have a good look at his leg and work out what is going on without someone else asking for attention. 

Second I put my Vet hat on did an examination. While it might be possible for very experienced owners to do this examination themselves, for the most part I would suggest getting a vet’s advice if you are faced with a dog that is not weight -bearing.

I was lucky in this case. The cause of Bluey’s discomfort was clear on a quick examination. He had a decent puncture on the outside of his foot. Typically he did an exceptionally good job and the wound was full of dog fur!

This was a very dirty wound. There was no way I was going to be able close the wound to encourage healing by primary intention until I got the wound cleaned. I started antibiotics because the wound was dirty, I had no idea how he did it, and the location meant that an infection could be catastrophic. I also plucked out as much of the hair and other rubbish as I could and flushed the wound with Chlorhexidine. When I say flushed, I used pressure to force fluid into the wound and try and force as much foreign material out as possible. This will make the wound sting, so you need to be careful with handling your dog when you do it. Chlorhexidine is also an antibacterial and will help kill any nasties lurking in the wound. 

As another preventative against infection I applied Abliar. I will write about this product separately, but to sum it up, it’s AMAZING. It is a Finnish product that I have been testing for over twelve months with great results.

Finally I used a light covering with Vet Wrap to ensure he didn’t get any fur or other rubbish back into his wound or lick it too much.

The end result was a very lame sooky boy who needed a lots of extra cuddles. We have been keeping him quiet so he can’t cause too many issues as he compensates for his ‘broken’ leg. We have been limiting him to walking because he is also much more likely injure himself in another way while he is compensation for his sore leg.

Even an injury this small will likely result in a few weeks before Bluey can run off lead in the park again. I feel a little like it’s my fault since his nickname is Boo Boo the Sookylala.