Accident-Prone

True to her nature, Riley has yet another injury. The hound is so accident-prone. You would think she would finally start to chill out in her 8th year, but not Riley Greyhound. She must twirl, spin, run, dart, stop, start, and zoom in every direction. It is one of my favorite and least favorite things about her.

I am actually quite surprised it took this long for Riley to dislocate a toe. It is such a common greyhound injury and since Riley has fractured a hock, seriously punctured a joint, bowed a tendon, sprained an elbow, and had a minor strain to the iliopsoas.... it only seems surprising that she has only sprained a toe once up until now.

So while running and playing about a month ago, the outside toe of the right rear foot dislocated at the P1 and P2 joint. The nail pointed towards her foot and the joint jetted outward. It immediately popped right back into place and it appeared that it might just stay that way. But then when she stepped out onto a very soft surface, it immediately dislocated another 3 times in a row.  I taped it to prevent it from happening again. My vet thought we would need to do surgery, but when he saw it a few days later, it was tight and not painful. So we opted to rest her.

I have not been resting her completely.  The toe now has a nice fat knuckle on it (scar tissue to hold it in place) so I exercise her, but carefully. No agility and no crazy stuff. Also, I have filed and continue to file her nail as short as possible. Every night I file the nail down to the pink of the quick... close, but not to the point of making her bleed. Riley gets lots of cheese for the slight discomfort.

I am about to start Riley back to work.  I plan to tape it for awhile.  Fingers crossed there is plenty of scar tissue to make it hold.