broken bones

K&CCLOSE · Post by **K&CCLOSE** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 5:12 pm

Hello resently my dog got out of the yard and got hit. I want to say that yes i have a fully fenced yard and my dogs normally never try to get out. Well this time he did and i ended up with my boy having a broken front leg. He broke both his front forarm bones. i was very upset at one of the nurses at the local emergency vets. She told me that it would be way to much to fix it that i sould just put him down. Wow talk about getting someone pissed off. Then she told me that i would have to pay $800 for the first x-rays and meds till that night when his bill would get higher due to everything else he needed to make him calm and centered. Well lets say that i told her to take a flying leap and paid the bill.
I am sorry but i concider my dogs my kids and if someone was to say that about my kids i would have sluged them. Yes i almost did!!!
We ended up having the best surgen in washington work on baxter and now we have a long 2 months of healing. and yes about $5,000 that we had to spend fixing the broken leg due to a special plate had to be inserted onto the bones and la la la. i just want to express my outrage that someone would guess that i would just have my dog put down insted of looking for other ways to fix the problem. now my 3 year old walker is acting like he never broke the leg. Has anyone had this issue? yes i will get some pictures up of him soon.

Houndswoman · Post by **Houndswoman** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 7:06 pm

You are probably not going to like my opinion. I think you probably have a pretty good vet and vet tech. I wish he was in our area because we would dang sure try him out. I think that for every vet likes yours, you could find a hundred or more that would have been happy to do everything under the sun to fix your dog with no consideration of the cost or if the dog will ever be 100% again. We would have appeciated their realism and candidness.

One thing that absolutely makes my husbands skin crawl is going into a vet and then watching a grown man or woman introduce themselves to our dog and call it baby or sweetheart in a baby voice while stroking its ears.

Whatever happened to the good old country vets that would tell you straight out what they think without worrying about hurting your feelings. We don't want a sweet bedside manner in our vet. We want good quality and conservative care for our hounds, at a price that a working man or woman can afford.

For us, ours are working animals and we owe it to them to give them good quality training, exercise and care; but we also feel that we need to be realistic when something comes up that could limit their ability to perform. We also feel a responsibility financially to our other hounds not to mention our family.

If it had been a simple break and it was one of our best hounds we probably would have put the money in the dog simply because we could not replace the dog for what the vet bill was and for the years of good service they have and will give to us. If it was a severe break as in your case we would have put the dog down. We would have been sad about it for not only us but the dog as well, but that is life. A young dog, under two years of age, we would probably put it down even on a simple break. Just our opinion.

Good luck.

Redwood Coonhounds · Post by **Redwood Coonhounds** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 11:22 pm

We just had one of our pups break his leg 5 weeks ago. He got out of his cast last friday. He was running with the big dogs at 11 weeks old. He broke it out hunting and I so happen to work at a Vets office. He broke the large bone in his back leg that runs between the knee and hock, clean in half. The small one was intact and helped keep it in place okay. Well 5 weeks of care, constant cast changes, sedatives, pain killers and xrays and he's outback running like a banshee. He's 4 1/2 months old now. It only cost me about $300 for everything. He isn't even old enough to be hunting, but he showed us he wanted to go. I think it was only right we gave him a chance. At 4 months old we have $450 into him. Less than an 8 week old pup runs back east.

mulemanbl · Post by **mulemanbl** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 2:27 am

I got a dog from a buddy in N.M. back in Aug. He got kicked by a horse two weeks later and broke both bones in his front leg, similar to your break. My vet told me that the chances of the bones healing correctly and not having any nerve damage was slim. After ten weeks in a splint, I was able to take it off. Its now March and I've only had him out a couple times and he seems to be coming along. He gets around good just a little slow. I'm into this break $400.00 My vet told me his honest opinion and said that at the least we could splint it. If that didn't work then I'd have to spend alot more money or put him down. LUCKY for us the splint worked

K&CCLOSE · Post by **K&CCLOSE** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 3:09 pm

All i have to say is that we looked at all possible outlooks on it and fiund that puting the metal plate would make the healing time and the future outlook way better. Now Baxter runs all day in snow, rain(his fav), and sun with no problems. I would recomend doing it. If you can offord it. We have put tons of time and energy into him.

pete richardson · Post by **pete richardson** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 10:16 am

houndswoman-- i agree 100%
most small animal vets and their assistants will try to guilt you into spending a fortune lol

if you can find a cow vet- or a horse vet - that also works on dogs -- often they have a more realistic attitude- you can always go for a second opinion - --

i had a vet once , his first question was---what is this dog worth -

then he'd say, this option wiill cost this much ,and this will cost this much--

he was always honest with me - trusted him 100% -- that is very hard to find

i am glad to hear baxter is ok just the same -

krk hunting · Post by **krk hunting** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:46 pm

i gave the shy and timid walker to a friend of mine that wanted to work with her the first day he had her she got out and got ran over that was wensday. now on sunday i was out roding my dags for some excersise and my 2.5 yr old jeff allen bred female, iran her over on sunday, she came up out of the dithch and right under the rear tire of my truck i didnt even see her till it was to late, i had my wife and sonand daughter with me and i wanted to put her down right there but they were all crying and wanted to take her to the vet.l the vet came in for an emergency call out $$$$$$$$$$, did exrays she had broke her pelvis and spine right at the pelvis the vet said she will never be a hunting dog and is not worth putting the monies into, it is hard loosing a dog with so much potentiel and ability, but i was glad she was forward about it and we put her down.

kevin

Tim Pittman · Post by **Tim Pittman** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:21 pm

We train cowdogs for part of our income,have had this happen numerous times.Plate and screw won,t hold up over the long run.Rod or pins are the only thing that really works,otherwise they get put down.The first options are usually for tried and proven/solo capable individual.