Tiga
Boxer Buddy
Hi, everyone. This is going to be a really, really long post. I'm not looking for advice or anything, I just thought I would post my story in case anyone has to go through this in the future and they need a reference point.
Over Christmas my husband and I went on vacation and hired a pet sitter to watch our (then) 8 month old boxer. She was suffering from COPV at the time (canine papiloma virus) and we thought it would be too much strain on her immune system to be in a boarding facility, and that she shouldn't be around other dogs since she was contagious. For the two weeks we were gone, the first week she stayed with my parents, and the second week (when they left for vacation) the pet sitter came to their house to watch her. The first day the pet sitter was there rather than put her in her crate when he went out, he locked her in the yard. She had never been locked in the yard before and most likely panicked and escaped through a hole in the fence.
She was missing for over four days when we arrived home and we were notified when our plane landed that she had been missing. I posted on Boxer World back then about this. I was terrified about what could have happened to her. Luckily, the next morning she was picked up by animal control when a family spotted her and called it in. She still had all her tags on and is microchipped so they were able to call us and have us come to the pet hospital.
Initial examination showed a damaged front left leg/paw and severe weight loss. She had lost 15% of her body weight over the course of the 4+ days of being outdoors. (We initially thought maybe someone had stolen her, but with her injuries and condition it was clear she'd been sleeping in the dirt somewhere). Luckily, she was not dehydrated and had either found a water source or had been given water. (We later found out from xrays she had a stomach full of kibble, so some good samaritan must have put food out for her. Too bad they didn't know she has colitis, and can't eat kibble!) She was also not in shock, which was good news. She was mostly alert and happy to see us and could walk on three legs. Her front left leg was dangling from her body.
Xrays showed she had a closed radial and ulna fracture of the front left leg. We were extremely lucky that she had no internal injuries, and seemed to be mostly OK. Aside from ripped up nails and some skin abrasions (injuries they told us were consistent with being hit by a car) she was fine. The bones were broken all the way through, right in the middle and they had to immobilize it. They decided to do an orthopedic surgery and put a bone plate and six screws in her leg permanently, to hold the bone into place. However, the hospital animal control took her to did not have an orthopedic surgeon there that day (it was new years eve and he was on vacation) so we had to relocate her to another hospital. Because it looked like the bone had broken her first day out and had already begun to reset over the four days she was missing, it was important to do the surgery right away.
At the second hospital they took her in for surgery and she did fine and came out with no complications. The hospital we ended up at were all fantastic, and they were adamant about not using ACE and I trusted all of the doctors. They kept her overnight to make sure she did OK and the next day we were able to take her home to start the new year.
OH, but it's been a long year already. She spent the first two weeks in a splint/cast and was not allowed to move at all. We could carry her outside to go to the bathroom, but that was about it. Lots of pain pills helped, but she still seemed to be fatigued from her ordeal and slept most of the time. After two weeks she had her stitches removed and cast taken off, and was supposed to go home just like that. My husband and I were concerned about the cut on her leg from surgery. It did not look healed, it looked like an open flesh wound and we voiced some concerns about leaving it exposed, but they assured us it would be fine. They were wrong. I know doctors use their best judgement, but my husband and I should have really been more firm about making them rebandage the wound after the stitches came out.
After a few days at home her leg swelled up and I insisted it was infected and took her back to the hospital. It turns out it was infected, and the decided to clean it out and keep her for a few days, and put her on an IV of antibiotics. I convinvced them to do a light dressing on it so that it would stay clean when we took her home, and we had to bring her in every day to have the bandage changed and the incision cleaned.
This is where the problem started. They told us if the infection reached the bone, it would keep it from healing, and they would have to remove the plate. She was already out of a cast at this point, and after a couple more weeks would be allowed to walk with just the plate in. They put her on heavy antibiotics and decided to monitor her over a two month period. At this point it was late January.
Her wound had finally closed and healed in February, but we continued several courses of antibiotics from February to April. We were even allowed to take her on short walks to help the bone heal with the plate in, but she wasn't allowed out of the house much or to the dog park, etc. We have developed many in-house games and treats to keep a (at that point just one year old) boxer still. Most of the time she was on crate rest. We gave her lots of raw bones to chew on to keep her busy and frozen kongs and even some cat toys.
Eventually, the xrays showed the bone regrowth had stopped and they feared the infection was underneath the bone plate, where white blood cells couldn't reach it to kill off the infection. The decision was made to do a second surgery and remove the plate and put her back in a cast. Basically, what had to happen was they had to go back in, remove the plate, rebreak the bone and clean it out and seal her back up. Because they had also drilled six holes into her leg to put the screws into, it was equal to a whole new set of fractures we had to heal.
This was April, so they put her back in a splint/cast, which she had to have changed every week. And we went back to not allowing her to move/stand/walk much at all for the first month. At this point she'd been on house arrest for four months, but had gotten used to her short walks, so it was frustrating for her to be completely indoors again.
The second surgery went well. She was already stronger at this point from all the antibiotics and us getting her body weight back up with lots of home cooked meals and raw food and treats. (I thought with all the extra bones and frozen kongs and immobility she'd get overweight, but she's still tiny). After the first two weeks they removed the stitches.
We've spend another two months in casts now. After the first month, they allowed her to walk around on the splint. At this point she was going crazy. It was impossible to keep her still, even with sedatives. We decided it wasn't worth it to give her heavy drugs, and stuck to benadryl. Even that didn't seem to work. She tried to box with her cast all the time. Would escape from us and start zooming around the house so we couldn't catch her. I was terrified she was going to rebreak her leg, but the only thing she did was break her splint about once a week.
After six weeks xrays showed positive bone regrowth and they were confident the infection was gone and she was on her way to healing. After the eight week mark, they removed her cast. This was a week ago. Her xrays show a nice callus that has formed around the break, allowing the bone to fill in slightly. It's not totally healed, but the doctors want some pressure on it to stimulate more bone growth.
Right now she's on a nine week course of rehab, including short walks three times a day and swimming. She gets to try out her new life jacket this weekend.
At the end of the whole process it will have been about eight months. In case you ever have to go through this:
Make sure the doctors will talk to you about everything. DON'T leave the hospital unless all of your questions are answered. We found that if we were pushy they would keep us in the loop about everything, so we had realistic expectations of procedures and how long the healing process would be. There was a period of "let's wait and see" with the antibiotics when we probably should have just removed the bone plate.
I hope no one else has to go through this, but it seems like car accident injuries are fairly common, and if you ever have questions about it you can ask me!
Thanks for listening... Tiga's on her way to being a normal dog again.
Over Christmas my husband and I went on vacation and hired a pet sitter to watch our (then) 8 month old boxer. She was suffering from COPV at the time (canine papiloma virus) and we thought it would be too much strain on her immune system to be in a boarding facility, and that she shouldn't be around other dogs since she was contagious. For the two weeks we were gone, the first week she stayed with my parents, and the second week (when they left for vacation) the pet sitter came to their house to watch her. The first day the pet sitter was there rather than put her in her crate when he went out, he locked her in the yard. She had never been locked in the yard before and most likely panicked and escaped through a hole in the fence.
She was missing for over four days when we arrived home and we were notified when our plane landed that she had been missing. I posted on Boxer World back then about this. I was terrified about what could have happened to her. Luckily, the next morning she was picked up by animal control when a family spotted her and called it in. She still had all her tags on and is microchipped so they were able to call us and have us come to the pet hospital.
Initial examination showed a damaged front left leg/paw and severe weight loss. She had lost 15% of her body weight over the course of the 4+ days of being outdoors. (We initially thought maybe someone had stolen her, but with her injuries and condition it was clear she'd been sleeping in the dirt somewhere). Luckily, she was not dehydrated and had either found a water source or had been given water. (We later found out from xrays she had a stomach full of kibble, so some good samaritan must have put food out for her. Too bad they didn't know she has colitis, and can't eat kibble!) She was also not in shock, which was good news. She was mostly alert and happy to see us and could walk on three legs. Her front left leg was dangling from her body.
Xrays showed she had a closed radial and ulna fracture of the front left leg. We were extremely lucky that she had no internal injuries, and seemed to be mostly OK. Aside from ripped up nails and some skin abrasions (injuries they told us were consistent with being hit by a car) she was fine. The bones were broken all the way through, right in the middle and they had to immobilize it. They decided to do an orthopedic surgery and put a bone plate and six screws in her leg permanently, to hold the bone into place. However, the hospital animal control took her to did not have an orthopedic surgeon there that day (it was new years eve and he was on vacation) so we had to relocate her to another hospital. Because it looked like the bone had broken her first day out and had already begun to reset over the four days she was missing, it was important to do the surgery right away.
At the second hospital they took her in for surgery and she did fine and came out with no complications. The hospital we ended up at were all fantastic, and they were adamant about not using ACE and I trusted all of the doctors. They kept her overnight to make sure she did OK and the next day we were able to take her home to start the new year.
OH, but it's been a long year already. She spent the first two weeks in a splint/cast and was not allowed to move at all. We could carry her outside to go to the bathroom, but that was about it. Lots of pain pills helped, but she still seemed to be fatigued from her ordeal and slept most of the time. After two weeks she had her stitches removed and cast taken off, and was supposed to go home just like that. My husband and I were concerned about the cut on her leg from surgery. It did not look healed, it looked like an open flesh wound and we voiced some concerns about leaving it exposed, but they assured us it would be fine. They were wrong. I know doctors use their best judgement, but my husband and I should have really been more firm about making them rebandage the wound after the stitches came out.
After a few days at home her leg swelled up and I insisted it was infected and took her back to the hospital. It turns out it was infected, and the decided to clean it out and keep her for a few days, and put her on an IV of antibiotics. I convinvced them to do a light dressing on it so that it would stay clean when we took her home, and we had to bring her in every day to have the bandage changed and the incision cleaned.
This is where the problem started. They told us if the infection reached the bone, it would keep it from healing, and they would have to remove the plate. She was already out of a cast at this point, and after a couple more weeks would be allowed to walk with just the plate in. They put her on heavy antibiotics and decided to monitor her over a two month period. At this point it was late January.
Her wound had finally closed and healed in February, but we continued several courses of antibiotics from February to April. We were even allowed to take her on short walks to help the bone heal with the plate in, but she wasn't allowed out of the house much or to the dog park, etc. We have developed many in-house games and treats to keep a (at that point just one year old) boxer still. Most of the time she was on crate rest. We gave her lots of raw bones to chew on to keep her busy and frozen kongs and even some cat toys.
Eventually, the xrays showed the bone regrowth had stopped and they feared the infection was underneath the bone plate, where white blood cells couldn't reach it to kill off the infection. The decision was made to do a second surgery and remove the plate and put her back in a cast. Basically, what had to happen was they had to go back in, remove the plate, rebreak the bone and clean it out and seal her back up. Because they had also drilled six holes into her leg to put the screws into, it was equal to a whole new set of fractures we had to heal.
This was April, so they put her back in a splint/cast, which she had to have changed every week. And we went back to not allowing her to move/stand/walk much at all for the first month. At this point she'd been on house arrest for four months, but had gotten used to her short walks, so it was frustrating for her to be completely indoors again.
The second surgery went well. She was already stronger at this point from all the antibiotics and us getting her body weight back up with lots of home cooked meals and raw food and treats. (I thought with all the extra bones and frozen kongs and immobility she'd get overweight, but she's still tiny). After the first two weeks they removed the stitches.
We've spend another two months in casts now. After the first month, they allowed her to walk around on the splint. At this point she was going crazy. It was impossible to keep her still, even with sedatives. We decided it wasn't worth it to give her heavy drugs, and stuck to benadryl. Even that didn't seem to work. She tried to box with her cast all the time. Would escape from us and start zooming around the house so we couldn't catch her. I was terrified she was going to rebreak her leg, but the only thing she did was break her splint about once a week.
After six weeks xrays showed positive bone regrowth and they were confident the infection was gone and she was on her way to healing. After the eight week mark, they removed her cast. This was a week ago. Her xrays show a nice callus that has formed around the break, allowing the bone to fill in slightly. It's not totally healed, but the doctors want some pressure on it to stimulate more bone growth.
Right now she's on a nine week course of rehab, including short walks three times a day and swimming. She gets to try out her new life jacket this weekend.
At the end of the whole process it will have been about eight months. In case you ever have to go through this:
Make sure the doctors will talk to you about everything. DON'T leave the hospital unless all of your questions are answered. We found that if we were pushy they would keep us in the loop about everything, so we had realistic expectations of procedures and how long the healing process would be. There was a period of "let's wait and see" with the antibiotics when we probably should have just removed the bone plate.
I hope no one else has to go through this, but it seems like car accident injuries are fairly common, and if you ever have questions about it you can ask me!
Thanks for listening... Tiga's on her way to being a normal dog again.
