Poor Homey

Homer is a pretty rough and tumble dog.  He will, without thought to how he is going to land, leap several feet in the air to catch a frisbee. He will also leap from our porch over our side fence to go after a squirrel, and climb several feet up one of the trees in our side yard in hot pursuit.  He is energetic, and loves to play, and has had his fair share of minor scrapes, slight sprains and bitten tongues. But this Saturday, a seemingly minor injury, has knocked the wind out of his sails.

Tom noticed him limping during a game of fetch on Saturday, and so cut the game short.  A short while later he seemed good as new. We didnt notice anything else was awry until Sunday morning when Tom and Homer were rough housing in the office and Homer reacted as if in pain after Tom brushed his right paw with his foot. Upon closer inspection, we saw that one of his little claws was cracked up above the point where the quick was, near where the nail leaves his paw.  There was no blood but we could tell he was in pain. A quick call to the vet confirmed that we would need to have him checked out the next day.

The vet checked it out and said that he needed to remove the damaged piece of claw in order for it to heal. That meant cutting it off through the nerve endings and blood vessels in the nail. Homer was as good of a sport as he could be, but even with anesthetic drops, it was obvious the removal still hurt him quite a bit. The vet put some ointment on the nail end, wrapped it up good, and sent us on our way with aftercare instructions to reapply ointment (antibiotic and anesthetic) and watch for infection.

Homer was pretty happy by the time we got home as is evidence by the photo below...

Home-Slice on the mend.

Unfortunately, the anesthetic wore off later in the evening, and he now has a pretty pronounced limp. It's clear that it is hurting him but unfortunately all we can do is keep applying the ointment and wait as the nail heals. I hate to see him limping around and slowed down so dramatically, and I hope he is doing okay at home today by himself. Keep my little guy in your thoughts as he heals!