Naia
Naia, age 4 months
Broken Femur
Naia was adopted today by a wonderful couple, who understood her past and were determined to help re-build her confidence! Naia has "landed" well. But she would not have without the support of our many EGF donators! Many thanks to you all!
Good news for Naia!
We had our 4-week
post-surgery follow-up with Dr Kerspack at CTVSH, and the X-ray showed that
everything has healed wonderfully.
There is no sign of any breakage, and her bones have continued their
normal growth to fully encapsulate the two pins she has in her leg. She has some
scarring/loose cartilage in the area of the break that will, over the next 5
months, be absorbed. At this
point, if you run your hand along her leg, it feels a bit knotty; after 5 or 6
months, that will go away. The doctor feels that Naia has completely healed. The
broken (and now repaired) bone won’t cause her any trouble down the line.
Prognosis:
Excellent! No further activity restriction needed.
Before:
4-month-old puppy, having spent the last
month crate-bound for 99% of the time; having spent the 2 to 3 weeks before that
hopping about and managing on only three legs; taken outside only to potty at
the end of a short leash.
After:
Above puppy let loose in the backyard
after the post-surgery follow-up. No
leash. No crate. No restrictions.
Oh yes. And
finally having four good legs under her
It took a good hour to convince her to come back inside!
Thank you to all of our generous supporters who helped to
get Naia back on all four feet again!
(well, at least when she's not busy snoozing after making up for alot of lost romping time!)
The young couple
arrived at the vet’s with a skinny little 13-pounder in their arms: “Please help
her.” Naia was a foundling, hopping on three legs; her right hind limb was
swollen, unable to bear weight, and clearly badly injured. Had she been struck
by car? Had something heavy fall on her? Been kicked hard by a bad person?
Nobody really knows—but the cost of repairs was way out of the finders’
budget.
Luckily, a rescue
person happened to be at the clinic, and she called a GRR pal, who got hold of
our Intake Director… and that’s how baby Naia soon found herself with a GRR
number and an appointment at the specialty vet. X-rays confirmed a break in her
right thighbone just above the knee, as well as revealing that the injury was at
least two or three weeks old—making repair more difficult. Just four days after
intake, though, Naia’s broken limb was repaired, the bones aligned and fixed in
place with two metal pins. Now for the hard part—recuperation
Naia’s pre-op foster
mom wrote up this story:
For anyone who has had the pleasure of fostering or being owned by
a 3-month-young Golden Retriever puppy, you know that it is a very special time.
Each day is filled with what can only be described as your typical antics:
* Landing on some unsuspecting sleeping dogs and humans at 3 AM to
announce that it is TIME TO PLAY!
* Zipping around the house, chasing the fellow “inmates” or just
chasing your own tail.
* Raising up on tippy-toes to see what is going into that sandwich
that foster mom is making, and hoping that just a little smidge happens to
gravitate into a puppy's mouth.
* Catapulting onto the couch for some quality snuggling time.
… Now imagine being a 3-month-young puppy and not being able to do
any of those things.
Naia came into GRR care with a broken hind leg.
She continually held it up, trying very hard to balance on the other
three while taking care of life’s bare essentials—eating and pottying. It wasn’t
easy, and a little puppy got tired fast. But now that she’s had her surgery, her
prognosis for engaging in the full puppy programme is excellent! The hard part
is going to be keeping her quiet, as she needs four full weeks of rehab while
she recovers: she has to be calm inside (crate at first, then ex-pen or baby
gate without other dogs to play with, no stairs, etc.), and for trips outside
she must be on leash. But so far, so good: at one week post-op, she’s playful,
enjoying chewing on toys, and in good spirits. She is tolerating the crate,
ex-pen and activity restrictions very well, though she really can’t understand
why she can't play with the big dogs! She has a big, deep bark—quite startling,
considering her pint size.
