I hate barbwire

Mosby

Mosby

Well-known member
Our club does a bird hunt every year at a local preserve and I bought some Chukars for my Vizsla on Saturday to get him some bird work.. It didn't take him long to find our birds and he had a good day but on the way back to the truck he went through a fence and came back and evidently caught a barb. I did a tailgate check and found a 1 inch cut on the top of his back. It wasn't very deep and didn't bleed much but it would gape open and I sprayed with a good amount of Vetricyn a few times(it was a clean cut) and bought some New Skin when we got home. I've never been a fan of New Skin because it really stings but they came out with a non-stinging "sensitive skin" version. I was able to seal it with the New Skin and had a hard time seeing the cut this morning. It should heal up without much of a scar. Wife was mad at me but nothing new there. Old fences are everywhere and balled up wire laying around is probably worse. I've been lucky that most of my dogs injuries from wire have been relatively minor but that's more luck than skill. I hate the stuff.
 
As long as there isn’t too much tension on the incision, it should heal given some time. Problem with incisions occur when they are over motion areas like joints or continually irritated by the patient. Keep it clean and protected. Older dogs heal slower. Wire is evil.
 
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Seems like barb wire is the main reason for emergency vet visits for the amigos.
Glad it was a minor issue for you.
 
The older rusty stuff doesn't worry me much; those barbs are pretty dull. But a shiny, new, tight fence can really do some damage.

We were walking a road in SD two years ago with such a fence on one side. Of course a cripple ended up out there so my high energy dog crossed that fence several times. She had a pretty good puncture right at the top of the ear flap, on the under side, right were it transitions into the skin on her head, and a couple of "racing stripes" on the under side of that ear flap down near the tip. Those wounds really bled a lot. She had another puncture right on top of her hip bone. That one didn't really bleed but there was an ugly little tag of skin sticking up. I cleaned them up as well as I could. She sat out the rest of the day and was good to go the next day. The next day she was a whirlwind--I think we as little pissed about sitting in the kennel for the afternoon.

With shorthaired dogs, they end up with stripes on their backs several times a season.
 
I'm always astonished as to how much of the countryside has some form of old barb wire. It's in places you'd never expect to see it.
 
Barb wire leads my list of unexpected vet visits. You can staple your self but make sure to flush and flush - inspect and flush that wound!

#2 reason is quills. If the quills hit mouth and tongue you need to be very careful to get all the small quills too. I like the vet’s approach to get them all vs trying to get them all in a less lit (lighting) area.
 
That preserve needs to clean up that field if it is junk …. If is a neighboring property dense line that steer away from planting birds too close
 
As a guy who has many miles of barbed wire fences, I have noted that the dogs that grew up here don't get wire cuts. I have seen several dogs that come here get wire cuts. I suspect that growing up and learning about wire early must be the reason for that.
 
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