I can not figure out how to get this photo to post correctly so just turn your head sideways.

Yamina is still in a splint after breaking her leg on September 26th. Towards the end of last week, she started licking the top of her leg above the splint. In fact, she started licking it a lot. I did a visual inspection to see if it was rubbing or poking and found nothing wrong. I decided that maybe it was just itchy under there because it was healing and her response was to lick at the top. (Turns out I was sort of right…) I went to the pet store and purchased a $10 bottle of bitter apple spray. This is what they recommend to get the dog to stop licking. I sprayed the heck out of the spot she was licking. By now she had licked it so much that she had a bald spot. The spray seemed to help some, but she just could not leave it alone. On Monday, I spayed it good before I left for work and hoped for the best. When I returned home in the evening, I was greeted by a dog with half her leg splint chewed off. I sprayed it some more to get through the night and then dropped her off at the vet on the way to work the next morning.

Around noon, the vet called and told me what they had found when they cut her splint off. Evidently, she had gotten her leg wet, really wet. Now I have been really careful to keep her inside when it was raining and our yard is pretty dry so it took me a bit to even think of how she could have gotten her leg wet. Then I decided that on more than once occasion she had thrown a fit when James was out in the woods, so I had let her out of the fence. She could have easily walked through the creek or waded into a neighbor’s pond. In fact, I remember the weekend of Halloween, she did come in the house after a brief run out of the fence and she was rather wet. At the time I assumed I forgot her incontinence medication on Friday and gave her another pill.

So, for a week, she had that moisture trapped under the wrapping. The vet explained that horrible things were growing under there and that the skin required some emergency measures. The vet had to wash her leg, shave it, disinfect it and then left it out to dry for a few hours. Yamina even had yeast growing between her toes! It was now wrapped back up but the vet had taken a photo so I could see the nastiness that was happening under her bandages. I told the doctor I would take her word for it and I did not need to see the photos. Yuck!!!

I felt terrible, like I had let the dog down completely. I was so consumed with guilt that it took me a while to get focused back on work. I kept thinking how I was just trying to be nice and let her have some freedom, but all I really did was put her at risk for some serious skin infections and add to her medical issues. Bad Mommy!!

I went to pick her up at 3 and met with the doctor who was a bit nicer to me now that I was there in person and she could see my guilt wracked face. Yamina was donning the Elizabethan collar and was very happy to see me. The doctor told me to bring her back in two weeks and we would then consider taking the splint off for good. I will be so relieved once the dog is OK and mostly back to normal. I am tired of worrying about her.