We're right smack in the middle of typhoon season here in Guam. That usually means buckets of rain falling out of the sky at the worst possible moment, flash floods, heavy winds & rough seas. In general, it's pretty craptastic.
What you may not know is I live on the side of a cliff, therefore massive amounts of rainwater runoff flow down the streets like rivers. That combined with the constant high humidity leads to exuberant growth of mold on streets, & on any surface exposed to the elements. As you might imagine, having two lame dogs in this environment ( slippery steep hills ) can lead to ass busting on a regular basis.
But this post isn't about that. That was just some local color as to what's going on out in there in my world.
So, last night around 10 o'clock we went out for the end of day dog urination show. I typically only put a harness on Jethro, as he doesn't listen, and Nouska is under voice command and doesn't stray very far. Although Nouska was a working dog, maybe because she was working dog, she doesn't get emotionally wild when confronted by random dog to dog interactions. Which is good because lots of stray dogs and semi-owned dogs and feral dogs roam wild here, and have aggressively approached her.
Virtually nothing gets Nouska excited, except cats. Last night we are all outside enjoying their urination before bedtime, Nouska spotted a cat in the neighbor's garage and tore off after it. Next thing you know, sounds of tools and crap being knocked off shelves, the cat screaming and Nouska is trying to jump up and get this cat, who is on a shelf somewhere in the back of the garage.
Well, the cat escaped unharmed, & we came back home. That's when I noticed that Nouska was leaving a bloody paw print wherever she walked.
Further inspection revealed a small laceration to her digital pad. But actually it's at the interface of the pad and the haired skin right under the nail. Basically, she ran into something sharp. I performed some quick hemostasis, cleaned it up and decided to wait till morning to see how much of a problem we had. Well it's a pretty good laceration – and it opens up when she walks, so, on to Plan B: I have to actually take action.
Yeah, it doesn't look impressive, but when it's your kid...
I had the phone a friend network activated and asked several veterinarians what they thought of this particular injury. I got some good ideas,rolled out to the VTF, picked up some supplies & made my way back here.
I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a box of drugs todayyyy
Clipped and cleaned with chlorhexidine, put in two skin sutures ( I wanted to do intradermal but there was no way I was gonna make that happen ) And, just cause I'm a glutton for punishment, I went ahead and wrapped it all up.
Clip
Clean (Quick? what quick?)
I'm 87% pleased with this closure
2 toenails :)
Now the wrapping is basically just to keep mud out of it for the rest the day. But honestly, it's going to get wet and even if it didn't, it will be ingested if I leave it on overnight, so I'll unwrap tonight and re-wrap in the AM, hopefully she won't chew the stitches out! I hit her with some more sedation meds--on top of the local, so she's kind of sleeping it off, a good hour and a half after the 'procedure.'
Zzzzzzzzzz
Which reminds me, a friend recently asked how I came to have these two dogs in my life. I know most of you probably know the stories, but I will go ahead and and share them here--"Why they're my dogs" will be the next couple of posts over the rest of the weekend. Hope everybody is doing well and that's it for today!
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