Mortaine’s Blog

We found the source of one of Hammer’s health problems. It doesn’t explain his labored breathing, nor the sudden cardiac episode he had during the X-Ray (though it might… but more later).

A few years ago, Hammer broke one of his toenails off. He’s done that a couple of times since then, but that one was our first, and it grew in wrong. Basically, instead of growing down, it grows up.

Um.

I swear, I trimmed his nails last weekend, and I didn’t notice this. Two vets have evaluated him in the last two weeks and didn’t notice it.

The up-growing toenail had grown into (or maybe just recently punctured?) the toe next to it. It was very deep when I finally found it and pulled it out. Because it’s a puncture wound, it didn’t bleed, so we didn’t even notice until this evening, when I commented his foot was very red and inflamed, and John noticed a little blood in between his pads. We figured he might have scraped his foot at some point while stumbling around, and I went to clean it up. That’s when I realized there were only three toenails, and the fourth was either gone or embedded in the next toe.

Ouch.

All I can say is that I’m shocked and horrified and relieved that we’ve found such a simple source to the enigmatic problem of his back leg not functioning.

And that I resolve to trim his nails more carefully. Man, nothing will make you feel more neglectful than realizing you missed something so basic as the condition of your dog’s feet.

As for how it might be related to the other problems, here’s my theory: If this has been going on for a while, then it would have been painful enough for long enough to cause the atrophy the vet noticed yesterday. And if the nail actually grew into the toe, it could have caused an infection that could have damaged his lungs and heart. I’m not saying these things have happened, but they are a possibility.

The upshot is, we’re again in wait-and-see mode, along with treating the injured foot, and will call and leave a message with the vet tomorrow morning. He is still limping heavily, and he’s still breathing in a very scary manner, but he is putting weight on his foot, which is good. It’s possible he still has other problems with that leg or his nerves, but it’s also likely that this was the main source of discomfort for my big brindle boy.

So, Hammer continues to have trouble with his left leg. This isn’t sprain-like; to me, it looks neurological. John tells me (today) that said he looked like he might have nerve damage a few months ago when she was visiting. Our local vet hospital doesn’t have a neurologist; John and I have to decide if we want to take Hammer back to Berkeley for this (though if we do, we’ll have to *promise* to be less troublesome dog-parents).