A good and bad weekend

J

Jakeismydog2

Member
I only had an hour to get Ox out Saturday morning as we had plans to go christmas shopping. So we went out for a quick hunt. Having that little bit of moisture Friday evening and dew Saturday morning was great. Ox went out and pointed his first covey during season. Unfortunately I let him down and missed on both my shot opportunities. Went back out Sunday morning, Ox again did a great job and made a solid point. I again missed with both my shots. This time on a straight away down hill quail.:mad:

Then later in the hunt I realized Ox was limping a bit and had a bloody foot so we headed back to the car. Got back to the car and saw that Ox had a serious gash on his front left foot. A 4 inch completely through the skin slice :eek: So I took him home cleaned him up, and washed out his wound with water. Then poured some H2O2 in the wound. Ox was not a fan of that! Then bandaged him up. He has not been himself today. It's almost like he knows he won't be hunting for awhile and is really mopey. I will take him to the vet tomorrow to get stitched up.

My questions after today are: how do you all handle situations like this? How big of gash do you feel comfortable doctoring yourself?
 
The Big thing for me is can I get it clean, and is the cut something that I think I can staple.

I have stapled Indy 3 times this fall. None of them have been 4", and pretty easy to clean.

Sounds to me like a trip to the vet is the right move on this one.
Good to here Ox is pointing some quail.
 
Young Bert, the not-right dog, made a habit of ripping parts of his body open.

Have been told by vets to rinse, wash with warm soapy water, and then use alcohol, not hydrogen peroxide on the gashes. Something about destroying tissue...don't remember. Prior to getting this information, never seemed to cause a problem with YB. I just wanted to kill bacteria.

dunno. Wiser folk than I will chime in, I hope.
 
I would err on the side of caution and go to the vet on this one.

One of my dogs had a similar size cut but it was in the bend of her leg and it was an upside down v shape. My vet recommends saline solution to clean wounds, says it doesn't destroy tissue like hydrogen peroxide.

Hope it all turns out well. We lost a full month of hunting because the wound had to be stitched twice to get it to heal correctly.
 
There was really no choice other than going to the vet. I have a friend who is a vet, but is currently a stay at home mom. She looked at it and told me she could not fix it without knocking him out. Which she could obviously not do at home. The vet today told me that Ox did not like the H2O2 because it causes heat when it is applied to an open wound. I had never heard that before. Vet also said H2O2 isn't her first choice but it does do a good job of bubbling out contaminates.

Those of you who have staplers how big of wound do you feel comfortable stapling up?

It is pretty funny to watch Ox tonight as he is recovering from surgery and still feeling the effects of anesthesia. He has been trying so hard not to fall asleep for the past hour. It's like watching an old man doze off in church. His head will droop, droop, droop until his nose or ear touches the floor. Then he pops his head back up and the cycle starts over.

So now I am without a dog for at least 2 weeks. Of course it could not happen that my dog would be out during deer season. That would be way to convenient. Maybe I should become a goose hunter for a couple of weekends. If only I knew anything about goose hunting. Oh well. I am sure I can find something to do with my next 2 weekends, it just stinks to lose so much time when there are so few weekends of hunting each year.
 
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