Hurt after dog park adventure
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Dolce hurt her right hind leg, the ankle portion, after a rough day at the dog park. There is a specific area just for small dogs and another area for all dogs but pretty much a large dog park. She has way more fun with the bigger dogs because they wanna run real fast like her. This specific day there were A LOT of dogs all sizes! There were about 5 newfies, a bunch of pit and pit mixes, funny looking basset hound mix twins, everyone was super hyper full of life, there was even a boston puppy! It rained a few days in a row earlier that week and it was slippery and muddy. Dolce was being cased by all the dogs and she LOVES IT. I notice she was just jumping over all the dogs and climbing on the backs of the super large dogs and I try to calm her down but after all the running she is just wild and panting. She comes back to me after running further away with a bunch of dogs and is limping for a sec but then springs back to her usual like nothing happened. We left and I took her to my mothers to hang out and she bang to limp again. I took her to my work the next day the vets where a little confused on her injury because the boney prominence of the back of her foot was super swollen and seemed like there was fluid in there. We rapped her leg up and gave her meds to keep calm and for pain but she just wouldn't have it… she said OHHHH HELLL NO to the splint and it only last a day. Thank god there was no break it was a dislocation. A big dog must of stepped on her foot as she tried to jump on them or something, its hard to say things happen so fast at the dog park, and the lay out of the land its hard to watch every moment. Its been a few weeks and it is almost healed entirely but I miss my baby girl doing her laps around the house. I feel terrible, I have to calm her down every time she gets super happy seeing us or the neighboring dogs, anything really because she is just random at times with her excitement. I wish I was more strict when this first happened because she would of healed sooner. You live and you learn it was hard to so called re-train her to be almost a different dog. Also having her on the pain and calming meds was very hard at first she was a zombie for the week or so. Thank god she has learned to adjust to this new routine of being more calm and this terrible journey is almost entirely over. I hope that this injury won't be an issue later on in life but I know from my own knee injury the weather effects me and other situations. I think she still will visit the large dog park but maybe not have her play so rough and remove her from time to time to calm her down a bit because she doesn't realize how crazy she is getting with some of the dogs... I just love my girl and want her to be the happiest B she can be lollll!
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Glad she is doing better. Sadly this could have happened if she was playing with ONE dog and a misstep. You can't protect from everything. You might want to talk to the vets about just adding in supplements like bromelain as a routine to help avoid future issues from the injury.
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There is always a risk in having fun, but for most the reward is worth the risk. She has a momentary setback.
Since you mentioned her being a zombie for the first week on pain meds (but didn't mention which), I want to share my experiences with them. I've had more than 130 basenji fosters - lots of pain meds required for post-surgical sterilization procedures, etc., as well as various medical conditions the dogs have when they first arrive. Rimadyl is frequently prescribed by vets for pain. When I gave it to a couple of fosters, they became so lethargic that I would have taken them into the vet's or ER if they had progressed much further. I do know of others, including former fosters, that have died hours after taking just one more regular dose of Rimadyl. While there are always risks in life, there are other pain meds which have not produced such negative reactions in my fosters. I have used Tramadol for many more basenjis than I have ever used Rimadyl and have never had a reaction from the Tramadol (though I do have to hide it more carefully - very bitter taste!). I will not use Rimadyl for a basenji again. While it may be fine, I just don't want to take the risk based on the amount of reactions I've seen in the time that I have used it. There are other options. If you do use it, please watch your basenji very carefully and consider asking your vet for a different pain reliever if they do become lethargic or behavior changes significantly.
I would like to know what pain meds you were using, if you don't mind sharing the info. To keep life simple with so many fosters, I like to do everything in a manner that will be tolerated by all in the population. While, of course, there will be an exception here and there, if I see something is a problem multiple times, I will eliminate it from our routines.
Thanks for sharing!
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Good point! Yah I am actually cleaning one of my vet houses tmrw… day 2 actually she moved into a new house doing detail work for her.. I do all jobs haha so I will absolutely ask her about that.
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So sorry to hear about your girl's injury - that sort of thing can always happen when the b's are running wild. Mine also prefers playing with the bigger dogs and love it when she can get them to chase her because she is faster, and when one can nearly catch her, she is so agile she loses them in a quick about-face! It's not hard to see how these mishaps are possible, and as said before, we can't protect them from everything all the time, because they do love to run and play hard. One thing you mentioned I find helpful - when she gets too carried away I hold her for a couple minutes to calm her down a little, then let her to at it again. Hope she's all fine soon.
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She is doing WAYYY better but not fully healed. I want to go trail walking with her again since it's been snowing here lately but I don't want to stress her out. She surprising likes the snow.. preferably with a jacket. I am working on getting her snow booties make it even more fun for her!
