Tonight the unexpected happened with our pups and it has resulted in our little guy with a broken arm and mandatory crate rest for 4-6 weeks and an optimistic 4 month recovery.
We crate and rotate our dogs here at the house, we have a pair of agility dogs and three littermates that we are developing for conformation shows. They are rotated throughout the kennel, yard and house.
Last week while the threesome were playing in the kennel, our two 4-month old pups got tangled up, a paw in a collar (cutting off circulation the more they struggled), as they sometimes do and during the course of unhooking them panic set-in and eventually sent our older female to react by biting our little male. Once I separated her she had punctured him and broken his humerus bone between the elbow and shoulder joint .
I couldn't understand why or what had set her off, rewinding the course of events in my head. My only conclusion was it was my high level of excitement and the squealing from the pups that set her off.
Within 15minutes we were at a local vet (not our normal vet), who saw us straight away, but once she learned it was a pit-bull bite, she reluctantly took him in the back for x-rays and then came out to tell us that his humerus was fractured and there was nothing she could do for him and we needed to go directly to University of Penn and it would cost us $5-6K. I was floored and asked her what other options we had because we could not afford a surgical repair. Her response..."fix the arm or put him down!"
The vettech took my information for "carecredit" and I had to ask her to dress his wounds, she took him in the back and put three half-ass staples in a gash on his forearm and gave me a copy of the x-rays and a list of 24hr emergency hospitals in the area and said good-luck. No anti-biotics, no pain meds nothing.
I called the list of vet hospitals and no one had a payment-plan option and an orthopedic specialist wouldn't be able to see him until the end of the following week...
Now, many long nights and two emergency visits in two different states, Ike is fighting to save his arm. $6K Emergency surgery was out of our means, so the great Veterinarians at Delaware Specialty care, manually set his arm as best they could and immobilized it with a Spica splint.
We need to confine him to "quite crate rest" for 4-6 weeks to allow the bones to heal. He may have a crooked bone and will never see the inside of the show ring but at least the little fella will have a chance to make a full recovery and live a happy bully life.
We crate and rotate our dogs here at the house, we have a pair of agility dogs and three littermates that we are developing for conformation shows. They are rotated throughout the kennel, yard and house.
Last week while the threesome were playing in the kennel, our two 4-month old pups got tangled up, a paw in a collar (cutting off circulation the more they struggled), as they sometimes do and during the course of unhooking them panic set-in and eventually sent our older female to react by biting our little male. Once I separated her she had punctured him and broken his humerus bone between the elbow and shoulder joint .
I couldn't understand why or what had set her off, rewinding the course of events in my head. My only conclusion was it was my high level of excitement and the squealing from the pups that set her off.
Within 15minutes we were at a local vet (not our normal vet), who saw us straight away, but once she learned it was a pit-bull bite, she reluctantly took him in the back for x-rays and then came out to tell us that his humerus was fractured and there was nothing she could do for him and we needed to go directly to University of Penn and it would cost us $5-6K. I was floored and asked her what other options we had because we could not afford a surgical repair. Her response..."fix the arm or put him down!"
The vettech took my information for "carecredit" and I had to ask her to dress his wounds, she took him in the back and put three half-ass staples in a gash on his forearm and gave me a copy of the x-rays and a list of 24hr emergency hospitals in the area and said good-luck. No anti-biotics, no pain meds nothing.
I called the list of vet hospitals and no one had a payment-plan option and an orthopedic specialist wouldn't be able to see him until the end of the following week...
Now, many long nights and two emergency visits in two different states, Ike is fighting to save his arm. $6K Emergency surgery was out of our means, so the great Veterinarians at Delaware Specialty care, manually set his arm as best they could and immobilized it with a Spica splint.
We need to confine him to "quite crate rest" for 4-6 weeks to allow the bones to heal. He may have a crooked bone and will never see the inside of the show ring but at least the little fella will have a chance to make a full recovery and live a happy bully life.
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