This Little Piggy

Katie continues to have off and on mystery lameness. However, I think I am finally certain it is a toe causing the pain. Recently, the toe in question started to bleed as if there was an abscess. It is a middle toe with an amputated neighbor.Initially, we dismissed the swollen toe because Katie refuses to flinch or wince during an examination. The toe's joints are intact and tight. The vet and I tried to pin point the pain, but inevitably she would put her game face on and be as sound as an old, neurological dog can be. She also has toes on the opposite foot that are completely broken down (see below) and she does not complain about them. It was hard to believe she was complaining about a swollen toe. Katie was put on antibiotics. I think she is possibly better, but she continues to not be forthcoming with information about how much pain she is or is not in. I am tempted to X-ray it, but then what? Would we take any action? I have to admit I would love to see an X-ray of both rear feet, but I hesitate because it would be stressful and she would most likely have to be sedated.Recently, I noticed a deformity as I was examining pictures of the injured toe. In the photo below look at the position of the nail and the pad (see below). The pad should not have an angle in the middle of it. The nail is also on the same plane. If you compare to the other toes (see above), you see that the nails run parallel to the pad, but are not on the same level. It appears to me that she is wearing the nail and part of the pad away. I have never seen anything like it and I am not sure what would be happening internally to cause it.Despite it all, Katie continues to be a happy, playful girl.

This Little Piggie was deformed,

This Little Piggie was dislocated,

This Little Piggie was broken,

This Little Piggie was amputated,

And this Little Piggie went wee wee wee all the way home.

Breaking Down

Unfortunately, Katie has dislocated another toe, but his one does not pop back into place (meaning the connective tissues in the joint are torn). Adding insult to injury, this toe injury occurred on a rear leg... as if Katie does not already have enough rear end problems (neurological, missing toe, and lots of arthritic changes in the remaining toes).

Dr. Toby examined the problem and suggested we see if Katie can live with the dislocation (versus amputating the toe). The dislocated toe joint has broken down completely and is not repairable. The other toes are breaking down as well and may not be able to support the burden of a missing toe. The interesting thing is that the injured toe never had any swelling so that makes me think it was probably being held together by scar tissue anyway. Normally a dislocated toe swells up immediately from the trauma. In the above photo, left to right, the first toe is the dislocated toe. The two middle toes almost appear to be headed for the same dislocation, but both have large knuckles and bony changes (especially the third one). Hopefully the additional scar tissue and calcification will hold them together for the rest of Katie's life. Left rear foot is below.This foot belongs to Katie's neurological leg. As you can see, one toe is missing (amputated 2 years ago) and a bursa has developed. You can also see bony changes in the remaining toes, but they are in much better shape than on her right foot. I believe the other foot takes a beating from compensating for the neurological leg.

Since Katie's newly dislocated toe has been painful, I have been giving her Deramaxx and I think it makes a big difference. I had kept her from moving around too much so I had not watched her move until the vet saw her. She actually was moving sound... well... with all things considered. She did not appear to be limping and was putting weight on it. Dr. Toby wants to see if Deramax can keep her going. We both agreed she is probably in pain elsewhere so the Deramax is probably a good idea anyway. Otherwise, he thought she looked great and complimented her healthy teeth.

Katie is just such a spirit and so tough. Never complains... just don't forget her Kongs and Bully Sticks!The sight of the toe creeps me out, but Katie does not let it stop her. I think it bothers me more than her. She has resumed her rehab exercises. A couple of days ago, she worked out for bites of ribeye that the husband begrudgingly gave up.

What bothers me the most is that I am putting a stop to her wheelies. In the afternoons even when it is 99 degrees (37 degrees for my Celsius friends), Katie is prone to spinning, running, and bouncing around the yard. I love to watch her. It makes me feel good to know she feels good. I hate to stop her, but I think the risk of injury is just too great.

Short Nails

Katie dislocated another toe. Two years ago, I had the first one chopped off 2 days after it happened. The collateral ligaments were obviously torn and the affected toe was on her left rear leg, the same leg she has a neurological deficit in. Katie simply could not afford to not be using that leg so it was easy for me to decide to amputate the problem toe. It was a good decision and she was back to normal in less than 2 weeks and has been busy ever since.

It probably sounds so strange to non-greyhound dog owners, but toe injuries are fairly common in active greyhounds (but things like bad hips and knees are very rare). In fact, Katie's recent dislocated toe is the 6th one I have dealt with since adopting my first greyhound in 1993. However, this time the toe ligaments were not torn. Despite being totally grossed out, I was able to pop it back into place with little discomfort to Katie. The toe didn't even swell up and she was immediately sound again..... but then it happened again immediately. Both times occurred indoors when she was not doing anything rambunctious. This happened right as I was trying to leave for the Perry agility trial. Since the toe was popping back into place, I hoped that a bandage would hold it into place and maybe it would not happen again.

The hubby reported no problems the 3 days I was gone. I took Katie in the backyard to do her rehab exercises and it dislocated again immediately. And then again! Dang it! It appeared a second amputation was on the horizon. I discussed surgically fixing the toe with my vet and he felt that being 12 years old and neurological that amputation was a better fit.

I scheduled the surgery. Despite the different bandages I tried, Katie seemed to be more uncomfortable than comfortable so I decided to leave it unwrapped since I was not trying to save it at that point. I also clipped her nails.

A couple of days went by and she had not dislocated her toe again. I started to hesitate about amputating. I stopped being careful with her, worked on rehab exercises, and even jumped her. No toe dislocation so I happily cancelled the surgery.

The moral of the story is to keep your dog's nails short. I am embarrassed to admit that I think a long nail was the cause. Normally, I trim the seniors once every 2 weeks and the brats weekly, but had probably let it go an extra week. I am really anal about keeping nails trimmed short, so I am appalled that Katie literally dislocated a toe walking through the kitchen possibly due to a long nail. The thing is that I have seen nails much longer than the ones you see in the photos below. So trim those nails religiously!

For those that have never seen a dislocated toe, the first photo is all of the toes in a normal position. The second photo shows the toe farthest to the right dislocated between the P1 and P2 bones.

Okay

No big report today for Travis. Not fantastic, but not bad. I'm going to start feeding him twice a day (every 12 hours) instead of 3 or 4 times. He is getting way too picky. I never thought that Travis would be picky, but knowing that more food is coming in a few hours gives him no reason to eat something he doesn't really want to.

Katie is great. I change her perfectly wrapped bandage every 2 days. She is such an angel and has always been so good about leaving wounds and wraps alone. I tried to give the surgical site some air time, but couldn't keep idiot Reagan from trying to sniff or lick it. I think I'm home free because the owner of the foot leaves it alone, but not Reagan.

Reagan got 2 days of some really good training this weekend. I worked her really hard at my agility field. It paid off because she is sound asleep now and too tired to follow me around the house. She is practicing weave poles for her meals everyday. "Will weave for chicken backs and necks", she says.

Picture is from the early days when Travis first learned to swim. He is probably 4 years old here. It was scary watching him swim to and retrieve a bumper the first few times. He'd go under water and I'd get ready to go in after him, but then he'd come back up. He was just so fearless and never let a little water in his ears bother him. He was just such a natural.

Treading Water

These pictures are from Travis' last agility trial.

Ups and downs, but generally just the same old, same old. I get the feeling Travis is starting to lose some interest in food. The only meal Travis has ever refused is ironically rabbit. Other than that, Travis has always cleaned his plate and everyone else's bowl. He used to spend a lot of time in our dog room licking bits of chicken off of crates. Not even Katie spends that kind of time on it. But today Travis didn't want his cooked breakfast. I offered him a chicken back and he ate that. Since then he has eaten his cooked meals. I stopped adding veggies and will add tastier proteins like turkey, eggs, cheese, etc. Hopefully that will help. Other than that, he is mostly unchanged I suppose.

Poor Katie is hobbling around. I feel terrible for walking her in with a sore toe only to make her walk out very lame. But in the end, I think this will be best. The current pain will be short lived where as a dislocated toe would have been a chronic problem. I changed her bandage today and the surgery site looks very good.

My complaint for the day is that vet hospitals really suck at bandaging. I'm not sure if bandaging is skipped in vet school, but I have never been happy with the wrap my dog comes home with. In the future, since I am good at bandaging, I'm tempted to save $20 and just have the hospital tell me what time to be there with my supplies and I'll just do the bandage myself. I don't think I would be annoyed if I wasn't charged extra, but since I'm charged ~$20, I want a perfect bandage. And if anyone from my vet hospital reads this, I'm not picking on you.... I'm picking on all vet hospitals. Kudos for at least making it easy to take off and redo :-).

Bandaging 101

1. Do not shave an area you are going to place sticky tape to. Vet #3 did this to Travis where he had the catheter. OUCH. I'd rather the tape pull off some hair rather than a layer of his skin. Seriously, it looks like someone sand papered his bare skin.

2. Do not use sticky tape as your primary bandage. I love elastikon, but the stuff is hard to remove if you use too much of it. Just use enough to stick the bandage to some fur, so the bandage will remain in place.

***Kudos to my vet for not using too much sticky tape on Katie.

3. Its not a bad idea to first cut your piece of sticky tape or elastikon and stick it to your shirt. Let it pick up some lint so it isn't quite as sticky. It feels much less like a wax job to the dog when its time to remove it.

4. Cotton should be placed between the toes. I do not want my dog to be in anymore pain than she is because her nail is stabbing the toe next to it.

5. And for doG's sake, for $20, I don't want to see any wrinkles or flaps. I want it to appear as though an expert (or myself :-) did the bandage.

That wraps it up for me!

Starving

No, not Travis. Katie would just like you to know that she is starving. Despite the fact that Mom fed her an extra 2 big chicken backs yesterday at 10 PM (we feed only in the mornings), she still was quite unhappy about her skipped breakfast this morning. If only I could reason with her. Katie did not have to arrive at the vet hospital for her toe removal until 11 AM, so I had this face glaring at me all morning while I worked. Katie is the face of food motivation. When I teach greyhound obedience training classes, I always ask that the greyhounds not be fed prior to class so that they are extra hungry and excited about the treats. Katie, the exception to the rule, had to be fed prior to classes, events, shows, and training sessions just because she becomes too food motivated and has to have the edge taken off.

Her toe amputation went fine. Stephen will be picking her up on the way home from work. He is excited about making the toe into a key chain. Kind of like a lucky rabbit's foot.... this would be a lucky greyhound's toe (fat and mangled, but lucky nonetheless). And, of course, it would be a little piece of our "Pumpkin" that could last forever....... just kidding :-). That would be terrible!

Nothing to report on Travis. No change.

Reagan is a little pistol. She has no patience for this geriatric stuff. I am still working her everyday otherwise she would drive me even crazier with more energy. She is really turning into one of my greyhounds..... a well trained, pain in the butt. Sometimes I just have to put her in a crate to get her out of my way. She follows me everywhere in the house..... not quietly like Travis..... but races after me. Its a double edge sword. I love for them to be alert and ready for anything, but it would just be nice to be able to turn them off sometimes.

I need to get Stephen in the backyard so he can film Reagan's teeter and weave poles. She is coming along very well. The teeter is getting close to full size and she's slamming it down with no problem and she is offering a 2-feet-on-2-feet-off contact (where her 2 back feet remain on the board and she holds the position until I release her). Her jumping is coming along. She is starting to learn how to cross (change sides with me). Her front crosses are pretty good (me crossing in front of her). In the weave poles, here rear end is still disorganized, but I think it is getting better. Still no rush though. She turned 15 months yesterday. She already knows so much more than Katie did at 32 months or Travis at 41 months.

Here she is getting acquainted with Daddy's belt :-). She's a fighter.... going to teach that belt a lesson.

Busted

Unfortunately, I think Katie has busted a toe. With her left leg still having a residual neurological deficit (that sounds really smart, doesn't it? :-), it does some crazy things sometimes. The left hind leg doesn't always seem to respond as quickly as the rest of her body, so I was aware that it was more likely to be injured if she was running, jumping, and spinning. I try to maintain a healthy balance of restricting some activities to prevent injuries without asking her to reduce her active lifestyle. I suppose we are lucky it is just a toe. I am not sure if it is broken or dislocated. Either causes a toe to become painfully swollen. I will have it x-rayed next week to determine for sure. If it is dislocated (or maybe even if it is broken), I am tempted to go ahead and have it amputated. That sounds really extreme, but I have seen far too many greyhounds waste a year of life limping around on a bad toe that just won't heal. The problem is that if ligaments are torn, they do not grow back together without surgical intervention. On a 10 year old dog, I can't really justify orthopedic surgery on an outside, rear leg toe especially when such a toe is rarely missed by the dog. Best of all the dog can resume normal activity 4 - 8 weeks after a toe is amputated. I do not want to waste too much time making a decision or she will start to lose overall muscle tone from being inactive and also lose some of the neurological function she worked so hard to regain. Never a dull moment.

It is the little toe on your right. You can't see it in the photo, but it is very red and swollen on the inside. For now, Katie will have to stay on a leash and ice the toe a few times a day.