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Poor Rye…

Our little dog Rye has had a lot of bad luck for the past couple of weeks. She’s a half Doberman, half Border Collie mix, and has a bit of trouble with her hips. She’s slow to get up after she’s been laying down for a while, especially after long runs. We’re pretty sure she has hip dysplasia in at least one of her hips. Up until now it’s just been an irritation to her, but a couple of weeks ago we think she injured it somehow, and she started limping and refusing to put any weight on one leg. After a day or two we realized it wasn’t just a sprain or thorn in her foot, and took her to the vet. She was x-rayed and examined, and the vet discovered that she had torn some ligaments in her knee. So we sent her in for surgery a couple of days later. The x-ray also confirmed that she has hip dysplasia.

She came back with a large incision in her knee about 5 inches long, all stitched up. She was very excited to see us when we picked her up at the vet’s, because she was there overnight in a little wire cage and was probably very uncomfortable and lonely. We helped her up into the Element (this was the first time she had seen the new car, and it posed a challenge for her to jump up into it with her bad leg, even with our help). She was used to simply stepping into the car, since she grew up with the Integra.

She was supposed to be separated from our other dog Max, because he plays very rough and could hurt her leg more while it heals. But when we brought her home he was surprisingly calm and gentle with her. Jenee’ says she read somewhere that dogs can sense when other dogs are injured, and will behave more calmly when in the presence of one that is trying to recuperate.

Rye was well on her way to recovery until a few days later when she started licking her side constantly. For a while we didn’t pay much attention to it, and thought maybe she was just giving herself an extra long and luxurious bath. But then we looked closer at what she was licking and noticed that it was a wound of some kind. It didn’t look bad, not much worse than what she gets normally running in the woods or playing, so we left it alone for a day. She continued to lick it however, so we looked again and it seemed much much bigger and all of the hair was gone from the area. The hair was gone from her licking it so much, but the wound seemed to spread because of infection. It also started to smell absolutely terrible. It smelled like she was rotting, immediately filling any room she entered with a terrible stench. So we took her to the vet yet again, and they discovered that she had been cut pretty badly somehow, and it was infected. We don’t know how it happened or when exactly, but it seemed to go all the way through the skin, exposing fat or muscle or something underneath.

We were instructed to give her some antibiotics to help with the infection, and soak the area with water 5 times a day for 10 minutes at a time. She also has to wear one of those funny lamp shades on her head (my wife says it’s technically called an e-collar) to keep her from licking it and making the infection worse. Surprisingly they didn’t tell us to bandage it or anything, so she has been walking around with an open wound on her side for several days. I’m not exactly sure why that is, but it’s pretty disgusting none the less. Against Doctor’s orders, we’ve been putting bandages on it once a day anyway, to hold on a charcoal poultice that we made. My mom is into natural remedies, and puts charcoal poultices on everything, or in you, if you are sick. So we are following her example I guess. Supposedly it draws out the poisons and bad stuff, which is good.

So anyway, poor little Rye is looking pretty rough at the moment. Her hind leg is still shaved from her surgery, and her side is shaved from when the vet examined her wound. She has stitches and a large incision on that same leg, and a huge gaping wound on the other. She keeps her spirits up however, as long as we are sure to give her the attention she thinks she deserves.

Here are some pictures of her wound if you are interested.

Warning, they are very graphic and disgusting, so view at your own risk

Poor dog! Yes, I’d say she does have a lot of bad luck. Hope she is ok.

She’s doing much better, as long as we can keep her from licking it. We try to take off her lampshade when we are home ‘cause she is miserable with it on and acts all depressed. :)