Puppy Surgery

What you see above is a bit of grass seed that has been aggravating one of our dogs, Basil, for the past few weeks. When we first noticed the problem, the only symptom was Basil licking between his toes on one paw. We investigated and found that a knot of fur and grass seed had formed there and with a quick flick of the scissors, thought we had solved the problem.

A few days later we noticed he was still licking and further investigation revealed a tumor-like enlargement between those same two toes. It didn't look like a blister and early attempts to lance and drain it produced no fluid; it seemed to be more like a callous than an abscess.

But it kept growing, slowly. We called Katie's mother, a small animal vet, and her over-the-phone diagnosis was that it was an abscess where something had gotten embedded in his skin and was festering away, motivating Basil to try to fix the problem through licking. We speculated that probably some grass seed was the culprit. Our problem: the wound didn't act like an abscess that could be drained and the offending particle removed, it was just too solid.

Last night I looked at it again and saw a long dark spot near the surface of the enlargement and the "tumor" did appear to be more fluid than before. I soaked Basil's foot in epson salt while Katie rounded up the alcohol, swabs, and sterilized a sewing needle. We dried off the foot and I poked the blister. Some blood came out but very little (if any) of the expected pus which would have indicated an infection by a foreign body and confirmed Katie's mom's theory.

We gently squeezed the sore and tried to explore and coax anything out of it but we got nothing but more blood. I talked with my co-surgeon and we decided we needed to cut it open and go after it while we could. Katie sterilized a razor blade, I cleaned the area with alcohol. She handed me the blade and while distracting Basil with puppy treats, I gently cut across the surface of the sore.

A little more blood but no obvious culprit. Another deeper cut and still no sign of anything wrong other than the obvious damage I was doing myself. Basil is a laid back dog and he normally doesn't object to our ministrations, even when we are doing things he doesn't care for, such as cleaning his ears or trimming his nails. He wasn't fighting us yet and I didn't want to make things worse but I was convinced that cutting just a bit deeper would yield results.

I did; it did. The point of the seed popped up through the blood and I grabbed it out with tweezers. We cleaned the area with alcohol, applied a topical anti-biotic, and bandaged the wound. Basil got more puppy treats and a chance to sleep in our room as both a reward for being a good patient and a half-hearted attempt to make sure he didn't lick the surgery site. This morning we redressed his foot and things appeared to be healing well. With the antagonist gone, Basil seems to be feeling much better and isn't lick his paw any more. As of right now the pocket in his skin is closing up nicely and the "tumor" is receding.

Katie's mom was impressed with our work and I'm glad we were able to get it out so easily. I bet Basil would enjoy a local anesthetic next time, though. Any ideas on how to get something like that?