# Puncture wound front paw



## Bubbas (May 19, 2009)

any experience with this? Pup got a peice of sawgrass lodged in his front paw between his pads. very little blood bit visible puncture hole. I'm soaking it on epsom salt and applying neosporin. this has got to be a fairly common injury any advice?


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## jeff t. (Jul 24, 2003)

Bubbas said:


> any experience with this? Pup got a peice of sawgrass lodged in his front paw between his pads. very little blood bit visible puncture hole. I'm soaking it on epsom salt and applying neosporin. this has got to be a fairly common injury any advice?


I'd want to be sure there was no foreign matter in the wound. Oral antibiotics might also be indicated.


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## mlp (Feb 20, 2009)

Do you have any EMT gel? I try to keep it on hand for small cuts.


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## Guest (Oct 17, 2010)

I would soak it twice a day in Betadine and warm water. soak about 5 min towel dry. If it looks infected start on antibiotics. I usually dont like to put an ointment on it makes my dog lick at it to much If he licks at it you could put a boot on that foot. Soaking may help draw anything still in there out.


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## ErinsEdge (Feb 14, 2003)

You are doing the right thing by soaking. You don't want to cover up a deep puncture wound because of anaerobes-bacteria that live without air. If it were my dog I would start antibiotics. I had a friend whose dog had a puncture wound and long story but, the leg abcessed to the bone and the dog had to lose her leg to live. The first vet did not treat it for a wound because the puncture was barely visible but thought it was an injury.


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## jeff t. (Jul 24, 2003)

ErinsEdge said:


> If it were my dog I would start antibiotics.


Likewise

Healing can be difficult. I've never heard of a lost leg, but know of a number of dogs that had punctured pads that abscessed through the top of the foot..it can take a dog out of action for a prolonged period of time if not treated appropriately.


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## GulfCoast (Sep 24, 2007)

jeff t. said:


> Likewise
> 
> Healing can be difficult. I've never heard of a lost leg, but know of a number of dogs that had punctured pads that abscessed through the top of the foot..it can take a dog out of action for a prolonged period of time if not treated appropriately.


Boy have I ever been there. Mine got a big black locqest (sp?) thorn deep in her paw. It abcessed twice before the vet finally was able to get in deep enough to find it, and then she got a bad infection despite antibiotics, soaking, cleaning daily with saline injection, etc. We had to culture to find out what obscure bacteria was growing in there. The whole fiasco meant the dog missed most of a duck season.


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## Julie R. (Jan 13, 2003)

Like Gulfcoast, I've been there (see the thread on the Chessie nobody wanted). Panda had similar injuries twice this year. The first time, whatever splinter or foreign object got in her paw unnoticed, but she came up slightly lame, and got progressively worse. I finally took her to a vet, where they said keep doing the same thing I'd been doing: soaking twice daily in epsom salt and disinfecting with a Lysol rinse. A close exam showed a healed, tiny cut on top of a front paw. Xrays showed nothing (very common, as a splinter or awn usually won't show up). She was also put on oral antibiotics. About 10 days after that vet visit, I woke up one morning to find out she'd gnawed the entire middle pad off that foot, so back to the vet we went. We never did find what caused it, apparently it abcessed and tried to burst through under her pad, and was so painful she ate the pad off. That gnawed-off pad took a good 5 weeks to heal. 

The second incident happened when she was at Copiah Creek in MS in August. Again, she came up slightly lame and Alan called me because he was worried she'd reinjured the same foot, but it turned out she was lame on her other front foot. This time she went 3-legged lame almost immediately, much faster than her first injury. So he took her to his vet, who shaved the paw and xrayed it. The xray showed a long, black streak which turned out to be a puss-filled tube 4" long, which the vet drained what Alan described as " buckets of smelly gunk ". The vet was worried she might lose that toenail, so she had to stay there 3 days with a drainage tube in her foot. This injury healed much faster than her first one, probably because the foreign object (again, never found) came out with the gunk, and she didn't lose her toenail. All told, she only lost about 3 weeks of training for the second injury, compared to two months' on the first.

Any puncture wound on the foot has to be treated with care, and warrants a vet trip IMO even though your vet might not be able to find anything. It's best for the vet to make the determination about oral antibiotics, as mine explained on Panda's first injury, they could retard the body's process of expelling the foreign object. Soaking in epsom salts can't hurt; I soaked for 15 minutes twice daily and followed with a dunk in a dilute Lysol solution. Not the spray stuff that's advertised on TV, but a 9:1 mixture of the bottled concentrate. I keep it handy for dog and horse foot injuries. Their feet get in a lot of germy stuff, and a puncture wound has to be kept clean and open so it can heal from the inside out.


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## beezleydogs (Jun 6, 2009)

My 'old man' had a similar injury on the closing day of the season last year. After a full work-up at the vet (xrays, etc) they concluded it was a puncture wound, although no puncture location was found. We hunted an area that has tons of prickly pear cactus, so the puncture would easily have been very, very small. The dog was a little lame towards the end of the hunt, I had figured it was due to his 8 years of hard running, and figured a good evening on the couch would take care of it, but when I got home his foot was quite swollen. As a result of the vet trip, he was put on antibiotics and had to be kenneled for a couple of days to keep him low and slow...a few days of that he was back to normal. Good luck.


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## JusticeDog (Jul 3, 2003)

Definitely antibiotics. If you keep in cephalexin in your first aide kit, I'd start with that. Keep soaking!


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## LESTER LANGLEY (Jun 12, 2008)

Pad injuries can go to hell in a handbasket QUICK. Don't close it, soak it in betodine sp? and start antibiotics at ANY sign of infection, if not immediately.


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## Bubbas (May 19, 2009)

Update: took the dog to the vet next day just to be careful.At this point we have no swelling or symptoms.the vet couldn't see anything remarkable so she hesiated to start antibiotics. fast forward two days later we have a small training session within two hours he starts favoring his foot and by the morning his foot is swollen like a baseball. Back to the vet. Cephalexin and Rimadyl are prescribed. Within 24 hours all swelling and pain are gone. 

Any advice how long I should keep him on light duty?


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## ErinsEdge (Feb 14, 2003)

Bubbas said:


> Update: took the dog to the vet next day just to be careful.At this point we have no swelling or symptoms.the vet couldn't see anything remarkable so she hesiated to start antibiotics. fast forward two days later we have a small training session within two hours he starts favoring his foot and by the morning his foot is swollen like a baseball. Back to the vet. Cephalexin and Rimadyl are prescribed. Within 24 hours all swelling and pain are gone.
> 
> Any advice how long I should keep him on light duty?


A couple of weeks at least. Just because the swelling is down isn't a reason to start him up until all the infection is eradicated.


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