'aftrnoon all,
Some information for you all, as some of you may or may not be afftected by what I'm calling "drought" injuries.
Due to the drought we've had to abandon a number of our normal training spots as the ground was so hard and large cracks were opening up so we retired to the local sports grounds which are watered albiet sparingly. Unfortunately they are also drying and cracking which has resulted in four dislocated toes amongst our hounds. In the dogs the injury appears to be in the shoulder as the dogs all limped and carried the shoulder, not putting any weight on the leg. This was in fact to protect the pressure on the toes. We were sure the shoulder had been damaged because of the way the dogs were moving!After visits to the chiropractor and vet they have both advised they are seeing more and more dogs suffering very similar injuries over the past couple of months.
Treatment: the chiropractor has put the toe "back in" but the critical thing is rest the dog from running and extending themselves for 4 - 5 days to allow the tendons and ligaments to recover. During this period swimming is excellent for the dogs. Anti-inflammatory medication (Rymadil or Metacam) for a couple of days to reduce the swelling of the ligaments and buddy strapping the affected toe for 4 - 5 days has also been done.
So, at the moment we have two dogs "strapped" and fingers crossed we can find some better ground to train on.
We're very lucky that we have some excellent veterinary and chiropractic specialists available to us, but our vet has also suggested that if we continue to have problems contacting the local greyhound association and get a referral to their recommended vets as the greyhounds suffer very similar injuries. He also advised that it was pointless to xray the foot as the damage to the ligaments wouldn't show up anyway.
Hope this may be of help to some of you.
Cheers
Kate