Levi’s Recovery
Introduction
Hi everyone, as some of you may know, my dog, Levi, was injured recently. He got into a fight with a friend’s dog which resulted in multiple puncture wounds on his right hind leg. Now that it’s been two weeks and he’s mostly healed, I wanted to make a post about what happened and his recovery journey.
CONTENT WARNING! PLEASE READ THE SECTION BELOW BEFORE CONTINUING!!!
This blog will discuss sensitive and potentially triggering topics including blood and wounds. No images will be included in this blog of the actual injuries, however I’ve included a Drive link with images at the end of the blog. View at your own risk!
Additionally, this blog will briefly mention some medical treatments. I am not a veterinarian, I only followed my veterinarian’s instructions. Always consult your veterinarian. Every situation is different!!!
What Happened?
Levi and I had our friend and her dog over in our apartment. My friend’s dog really wanted to play but Levi wasn’t as interested, so I got some treats and put them inside a puzzle toy. My friend’s dog tried to figure it out for about a minute, before abandoning it and walking away. My friend said that it should be fine for Levi to play with it now that her dog had walked away. Levi approached and my friend’s dog went after him. Levi decided to fight back and they began to have an actual dog fight. My friend and I tried to break it up but unfortunately neither of us were able to fully separate the dogs. My friend’s dog is significantly larger than Levi so Levi ultimately lost the fight. My memory is a little hazy on this part but I believe what happened was my friend’s dog bit down hard on Levi’s leg, causing the actual damage. Levi started to yelp and either my friend’s dog decided then to back off or my friend pulled her dog off of Levi. Once Levi was freed from my friend’s dog, he ran away crying toward another room. I went after him and very quickly realized he was bleeding a lot. I had gauze in a cabinet so I immediately started applying the gauze to his leg and comforting him while he continued to cry. My friend gave her dog a quick body check while this was happening and luckily her dog had minimal wounds. Unfortunately for Levi, it was very evident he needed to go to the emergency vet. My friend had someone pick her dog up and then she drove Levi and I to the emergency vet.
I do want to mention that I don’t blame my friend or her dog. Her dog has never reacted that badly with resource guarding and she had not been told about this issue when she adopted him from a shelter. There were a lot of things we both could have done differently to prevent this from happening and I’m sure I’ll always regret the dumb decisions I made. It was a really unfortunate accident and we both are lucky our dogs ended up okay.
Emergency Vet
I’m sure when I walked into the emergency vet with Levi, we looked like a horror scene. Both of us were covered in blood and I was carrying him like a baby. I wasn’t like crying or anything but we were both probably in shock. Someone came to see us right away to assess how urgent it was. The emergency vet was extremely packed so we ended up getting an urgent care appointment. There was a few hours before the appointment so we went home and I cleaned the apartment. I was mostly trying to busy myself as to not think about what had happened while also saving my rug from blood stains. Not sponsored but 10/10 would recommend this brand called My Pet Peed, their spray works on every stain and it literally picked up all the blood from both my carpet and wooden floor.
When we went back for our urgent care appointment, I explained what had happened to the vet and vet tech. The vet then took Levi to the back so they could clean his wounds. They had to sedate him which I expected since our primary vet sedates Levi for basically every visit. They shaved his leg and we could see that he had approximately seven puncture wounds. They didn’t stitch them because dog bites can get infected easily and they wanted his wounds to ooze and get the bacteria out. They gave me antibiotics, anti-inflammatory medication, and pain medication for Levi to take over the next week.
The First Few Days
The first few days were really hard for Levi and I. After the first 24 hours he had luckily perked up but it was very evident he was in pain. Any time he got up he would cry and he would limp on and off. I had to lift him any time he was getting on or off an elevated surface (couch, bed, etc) and he wasn’t allowed to do any physical activity. I applied a warm compress to his wounds twice a day and we also would do hydrotherapy once a day with antibacterial soap. I literally would put him in the sink and rinse his wounds with warm water. Then I’d gently apply antibacterial soap and then rinse the soap off and pat his wounds dry.
On the third day, I took Levi to our primary vet for a follow up on his wounds. The vet said he was healing well and to continue what I was doing. They also gave us more antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medication.
End of Week One
At the end of week one, I was a bit concerned about one of his wounds. The one on his inner leg (his worst wound) didn’t seem to be closing. It looked wet and was still oozing on and off while the rest of the wounds had scabbed over by now. The vet suggested I continue the hydrotherapy and apply a very small, watered down amount of antibacterial soap to the wound. The vet also mentioned that it might need to be cultured but luckily after a few days more it seemed like it was okay.
Week Two
Week two was when we could finally start getting back into exercise. Levi had previously not been allowed to run, jump, or essentially do anything active. It was really hard on him and I think he was starting to go a little stir crazy. At this point, he was also no longer on any anti-inflammatory medication. He was still taking his antibiotics but now that he wasn’t technically on any pain medication, I could observe how he was truly doing. We started week two with a nice, short walk and worked our way up from there. Mid-week, I took Levi to the park. This was his first time at the park since he had been injured and he was absolutely ecstatic. I let him run around for about 5-10 minutes and then we walked for another 10. It was a short excursion but I wanted to make sure he didn’t overdo it.
We’re still currently in week two but we’re gradually increasing the amount of park time and running around time. Levi is thrilled to be outside again and living his life.
What’s Next?
For now, I’m limiting Levi’s contact with other dogs. I’m unsure if he has developed any new issues from this and don’t want to test it with dogs we don’t know. At the start of September, Levi and I will be visiting my mom and her dogs, Finn and Loki. My plan is to see how he does with them and to test out if he’s developed any resource guarding or food aggression. If all goes well, my friend and I will try to reintroduce our dogs. They’ll be muzzled and leashed and we’ll see how they do. It’s very possible that both of them forget they had a major fight and they’re back to being best friends immediately but we’d both rather be safe than sorry.
Conclusion
Thank you for reading this blog. This was honestly a traumatizing time for both Levi and I but I’m just very grateful that he’s okay. And he is definitely doing better, we’re currently snuggling while I write this :)
If you want to take a look at the images of his wounds, the link is below. WARNING: images contain blood, bruising, and open wounds. View at your own risk!!!
