Valor sleeping on the bed in the cabin, getting spoiled!
My number one dog hurt his toe pretty bad on Thursday, Sept. 30th, 2010 during a training run. I didn’t see what happened to him, he was running one spot ahead of wheel and of course when you are training sprint things happen so fast you barely have time to react if you can at all! After the run his toe swelled up and he was limping to the dog yard. It remained swollen for weeks with him resting in the dog yard, even with pain meds and anti inflammatories. The poor guy would get left behind every time we loaded up the trailer and would just be flipping out. I felt really bad for him, it had to affect his mood somehow. There’s nothing more that he loves than running with the team, no matter what his position is.
After about 3 weeks, his nail started to fall off. So a friend and I pulled it off and wrapped it, soaked it for 5 days and kept it dry. He went on a series of antibiotics for 10 days and the swelling didn’t go down, nor did the wound close where his nail once was. After I got back from East Meets West Dryland Championships in Clearwater, MN I decided it was time to take him to the vet. It was now 5 weeks since he injured his toe.
Doc Steve at the Willow Animal Hospital in Ashland probed his foot and found a small bony protrusion poking through the wound that could have been preventing it from healing. He suggested that we try a different anti biotic and see if that worked, otherwise he would need surgery. Well, it didn’t work and he still had swelling.
Valor went in on Monday, November 22nd, 2010 (8.5 weeks after the injury) for surgery to Willow and they found the tip of his toe bone was infected and growing bone spurs. So they cut down the bone until they found good bone and sewed him up. Now he’s in the cabin for a week getting spoiled!
I sure hope he heals up, Valor is such an important part of our team. Without him in it, the younsters have had to step up and have done a good job so far. But we would like to have him back for race season, he just loves to run. He may run as soon as Christmas, we will see how he’s doing and take it day by day!
Toe from the top, post-op
