Here’s "Kirby". He came in as a rescue operation yesterday. One of my really good clients met Kirby and noticed him dragging his right front paw. His people said he had fallen out of a pickup truck about a month ago and injured it. They had been told the leg should be amputated, but just hadn’t gotten around to it. The good Samaritan decided maybe Kirby could do better than that.
It appeared that Kirby had suffered damage to the radial nerve. This caused him to lose control over the muscles that straighten his wrist. Hence, he was dragging it and getting a lot of damage to the skin. [Often this is not so bad, and recovers spontaneously in a few days; not this time, though.] They asked us to keep Kirby overnight while we were getting a consultation with the orthopedic surgeon and neurologist. I got an e-mail back late last night that detailed the neurological tests I needed to do to see if some sort of surgical fusion could give this dog a usable limb. It was all sounding good. I was here from 9:00 until 10:00 last night, and Kirby looked like he was up for it, but I didn’t feel I could do a good job without some help. I was looking forward to checking things out this morning.
When we came in this morning, however, the kennel stunk to high heaven (which it usually does not). Kirby’s run was about ankle deep in watery, bloody diarrhea. [Lots of cleaning, disinfecting, and changing of clothes] Turns out that, in addition to not doing much for his leg, his people hadn’t gotten him any vaccinations either. The parvovirus has him down, and it’s kicking him while he’s down. He’s in intensive care on I.V. fluids now. If he makes it, we’ll see about the leg.
What happened with Kirby? Did he make it?
Yes, he made it. See the update on 4/17.