I had been so focused on his knee and leg I hadn't paid attention to his foot. But two weeks ago I looked down at his foot and was shocked at how much bigger it looked than his other. The inside part of his left hind foot (the toe area) had a huge knot on it and if I touched it he did flinch. So back to strict crate rest he went with 15 minutes of ice several times a day (when he would allow it). This was two weeks ago.
Last week Teach looked like he was walking better after our rest so I decided it would be okay to go to Rally training Wednesday night (we have a trial this Friday). Well after training (in which I made him down most of the time except for our one run-through of the course) he could barely walk on it. That was when I decided we were dealing with something more and made him a vet appointment for Saturday.
When the vet first looked at it he really thought it was broken so decided x-rays would be good to see what we were dealing with. Even if it was broken the location would make it really difficult to splint. So it would just be crate rest and low level of activities. The vet tech came and got Teach took him back to get the x-ray. We were lucky that the location of the x-ray didn't require them to sedate him for it. They took pictures of his foot and his lower leg. I just knew we would see a hairline fracture of his toe bone. But I was wrong (and so was the vet). His bones look fantastic. The only thing the vet came up with was he has dislocated it or pulled/strained a tendon/ligament in that area and its stayed inflamed. We now have a 10 day cycle of rimadyl with instructions to go back if after the 10 days he isn't healed.
The Friday show doesn't look promising, but there will be more shows. Not the end of the world. Last night after having the medicine since Saturday evening the swelling does look a lot less. Keeping him quiet now on this medicine is a challenge. He feels good so wants to be his hyper, silly self!!
