Stink Leg

Yesterday was Tucker’s two week follow-up appointment and cast removal. We had a minor oops a few days ago with Tucker when he, with the help of his partner in crime, broke free from his enclosure in the carpeted office area and attempted to come up the steps. I caught him at the bottom of the steps before he was able to cover any great distance, but he still fell, all fours splayed out in all directions, when trying to turn around from the front step area. I think the incident scared us more than it did any real harm (he still had the cast on at this time), and helps to point out the difficulty in reasoning with a dog that is hurt – at the end of the day, he is still a dog, and he will do what ever it takes to be near us 24 hours a day.

I was not able to attend the cast and stitch removal ceremony, as I was on a plane back east, but Butterfinger has been wonderful in stepping up to take care of all of our canine duties while I am gone. Tucker was taken in the back and had his cast and stitches removed by the vet who performed the surgery, but Butterfinger did not get to see him once again… Instead the female vet, that we have had a lot of good experiences with, came out to talk to Butterfinger about the horrid appearance of Tucker’s leg post cast. I have not seen what it looks like, but it has been described to me as a red, irritated, swollen, and fungus infested situation. In my head I see pictures of MRSA and varied forms of the much feared flesh eating bacteria so popular on TV medical shows like House, and Butterfinger has assured me it is nothing that awful, although he did mention in passing something about his leg looking like it was ready to fall off… We have been known to exaggerate.

Exaggeration or not, this would probably explain why, the day before he was scheduled to have the cast taken off, Tucker started chewing at the bottom part of the cast in an attempt to strip himself of the infestation. On the morning of his bandage removal he had managed to nibble of small chunks of the wrap that was surrounding his foot. If he had been left to his own devices, i.e. I slept like a normal person and did not hear every minuscule sound, I am fairly confident we would not have needed the vet’s special tools to take the purple bandage off.

To take care of his skin infection he was prescribed some sort of healing balm and shampoo, and once again Butterfinger was sent on his way without being told all that much about what we should expect or anything to watch out for. He also was fitted for an e-collar to prevent him from trying to “heal” the site himself with oodles and oodles of licking.

As it stood this morning, Butterfinger reported that his leg was looking better and he has been putting about 40% of his weight on the leg on the odd occasion he is allowed to get up from his confinement. Apparently the only good the Elizabethan collar is doing is to act as a sound amplifying device for all of the birdies that land in the back yard, reminding Tucker of his current disposition. I am looking forward to seeing some pictures of the pup in his super dog helmet and will be sure to share them with you as soon as I receive them.