Blue joined our family in May of this year after a marriage failure in her previous home. Although I was aware she had lost a couple of toes in her racing career I was surprised to see she had a constant limp. She slowly adjusted to life in our house but displayed some incredibly stubborn behaviour which I was totally baffled by as our other hound Jorja is such an easy breezy pleasing girl. After two days of limping I took her off to our vet as I wondered if she had a reason to her limp. X-rays showed nothing obvious.
Under the advice of Jacqui Eyley I met with one of the GAP Trustees who is a vet and happened to be in town for a meeting. He felt her toe and wanted to open her up to see what was going on inside to cause her this pain. But he lives in Wanganui. So off to Wanganui we went the following week. Poor Blue was knocked out and opened up - he discovered that the toe in question had been a part amputation which meant bone/skin was touching the ground each time she walked, hence the discomfort. But unfortunately due to his work colleague being taken seriously ill that day, his work load had doubled and he didn't have time to fix her so he sewed up and she came back home again. I was a bit disheartened after such a long trip and no result.
Not to be deterred, the next stop was Maidstone Vets in Upper Hutt who had been recommended to me as being familiar with greyhounds. They too inspected her foot and came to a similar conclusion - discussions were had between the various vets and surgery was scheduled for the next week. The bone was amputated up to the next joint and tendons shortened - they felt they had done all they could to solve this problem.
When I went to collect Blue that night I was surprised to have her brought out to me on a stretcher totally out of it. She was placed in my boot for the trip home and I managed to struggle her indoors and on to her bed - all 30kg of her.
It has been a slow recovery, initially house bound and then slowly starting walks up the road. Her bandages were removed and her stitches taken out and now I am happy to report that eight weeks after her surgery she is like a new dog!
No longer does she struggle getting in and out of the car or limp after short bursts of energy. She easily keeps up on the walks to school and seems calmer and more relaxed. She is a much happier hound (although still stubborn at times)! Her first GAP run she amazed me by running and running and running - I had never seen her do that and it was wonderful to see. I'm sad to say there were times when I had almost considered her "too hard€ to keep, but thankfully we pressed on and got the result we were all hoping for.