As a pet sitter, I experience just about everything known to mankind.
Nala is a pit bull mix that I pet sat for while her parents when to France to get married. On their wedding night, Nala tore the big pad on her front right foot. It was sort of the heel of her foot. It was a huge gash…1-1/2 inches long. It bled like crazy….looked like a murder scene bloody mess. It did not stop.
I waited a bit, and then put towels in a crate and loaded her up. Oh, yeah, off to the vet.
The vet wanted to put stitches in it. I explained that the owners were in France and , it was their wedding night. I convinced her to just wrap it and give me antibiotics. The bill was $160. When pressed, the vet admitted that it would heal without stitches, but all this bad stuff could happen. Stitches would have required Nala to be put under and the bill would be over $500 for sure…maybe $700. My instructions upon leaving were to restrict activity and come back every three days for the pad to be cleaned and paw to be rewrapped. I followed the instructions to at T. Nala’s paw was re-wrapped a total of 5 times in the course of 2 weeks….$27 at the vet per wrap.
The owners finally responded and left it up to me to decide on the stitches. I opted to not get them. I did crate Nala for the entire two weeks, just taking her out for potty breaks.
The result….the pad healed perfectly. The vet was impressed. Nala went home. I was relieved. I felt like I was torturing the dog by crating her like that. Horrible. But, we did what was ordered and best for poor Nala.
I’m documenting this in hopes that I’ll help someone else.
Things to consider:
-Pads heal quickly. If stitches are recommended, press your vet…what if I don’t get them?
-Be prepared to crate your dog for 2 weeks. I crated Nala in my dog room, in a huge wire crate, with blankets and the TV on. She tolerated it very well.
-Make sure the cone is big enough.
-Have the vet do the wrapping….this is very important to get right.
I hope this helps.
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