My "other" child...

[Kim]

My dog Cleo broke a toenail. It is just kind of hanging there, but I can see the pink fleshy stuff. It is not bleeding, and she is walking fine, but she is licking a lot. I wrapped it up, but she will probably just pull the gauze off...

Has anyone else dealt with this? I have a call into the vet tech line to see if I should bring her in, but they have not called back yet.

 

[musicmom]

Just cut it off and mix a paste with flour and water and if it does bleed pack the wound with that. It'll be fine.

 

[Kim]

Cut it off?! Won't that hurt her? My poor puppy.

 

[musicmom]

YOu can't leave it hanging there, that will hurt her. Mine have had snagged nails I just clip them off. As long as you do not go up the the blood line in thier nails it'll be ok. If you don't believe me I'll give you a great site to go and ask. www.chatgoldens.com

 

[Kim]

Thanks.

 

[musicmom]

NP, I have two spoiled Golden Retrievers myself.

 

[Kim]

Well, she wouldn't let me touch it at all, and the vet tech called back and said I should go ahead and bring her in. They had to remove her whole dew claw Now she is hobbling around in a pink cast-like bandage but at least I know she isn't going to hurt herself, and they gave us antibiotics so it wouldn't get infected. But while we were there, the vet noticed she is really skinny, and asked about her diet. She is a small dog, and her breed tends to be on the thin side, so I never really thought anything of it, and we feed her about 3 cups of food a day, which I thought was normal. The vet said that she should be a "huge blob of sausage" eating that much, she eats about 2X as much as a 40 lb dog! So he thinks there is a problem. He said to bring in some stool samples to see if she has worms, but if it isn't worms they will have to do a whole workup with blood and x-rays and GI tests and everything. *Sighs* It will probably be expensive, but what can you do? She is just as much part of the family as the rest of us.

 

[musicmom]

Probably about $400 up to $1000 depending if they find worms or heart worms, etc. The meds are what's expensive. Ask if they can curve the visit fee.