Hi,

My girl sliced the pad off her toe on her front paw 2 weeks ago. It is clean off, no skin left, bled like mad and is a very nasty injury. We have been at the vets every 3 days since for bandage changes. They are now concerned that it isn't healing. The flesh is very pink but is growing lumpy and they are worried the skin won't stretch across the wound as it grows. We saw the vet last night and he is not sure what to do with her yet as he hasn't seen the wound before so can't tell himself if its any better. It isn't. Im back again tomorrow for him to have another look and see what the plan from then will be. He said its in the worst possible place and it will take months to heal. Shes on rimadyl, synulox and last night we were given some baytril. The wound has been really smelly at the last 2 bandage changes but is not showing any signs of infection. Any ideas on anything i could give her to help it along. Someone mentioned zinc to me, has anyone ever used this??? Shes looking so sorry for herslef and really missing her runs. Im managing to let her have a little walk but don't want to irritate the wound too much, but being stuck at home every day is driving her insane!!!
Any ideas???
mel.

Being smelly is a sign of infection !!!!
Have you had it swabbed to be sure ?

Is this a cut in the pad where there is a flap of pad and you are hoping it will bind together as a cut would do or has the pad had a slice taken off? Sorry not the best description but I hope you can understand.

OOOPs just read your description again. The top of the pad being clean of will mean that it has to granulate in again naturally which is a slow process as one of my collies had this. Are they using hydrogel dressings ? It took about a month for Wishes pad  to granulate in and it had to be protected for most of that time as it was easy to damage the granulating area. I would also ask them to do a swab of the paw to make sure there is no infection as Wishes paw didnt really smell when the dressings were changed. You may also need to use a boot over the dressing for walks.

Ill ask about swabbing it tomorrow when we see the vet again. I did tell him that this was the 2nd time it had been smelly when the dressing had been changed so hopefully tomorrow he will have some idea of what to do next once he sees for himself that theres not much progress. I have been using a boot which i had bought previously for one of my other girls. And yes the whole area of skin has gone and its pretty much the whole size of her toe.............a golden retriever too, so fairly large! Tey are putting some gel on the dressing when its swapped, would this be hydrogel???
mel.

Yes if its a clear gel it is most likely hydrogel.  As I said Wish's  took at least a month,to be honest could have been longer as its nearly 6 years ago now
Just to add with Wish it was the large middle pad she sliced off so it may take awhile but hopefully it will heal .

Yes, it does take ages for pads to granulate. My flatcoat sliced his pad - not taking whole surface off like your dog, just a deep cut - a month ago, and it is still not fully healed. I have heard of zinc type mesh for skin to granulate over, is that what you mean? Or giving zinc by mouth to help the immune system?

Duibh kept getting a smelly toe when it was redressed - and it wasn't infected,  just smelly. They can get quite oozy when they are healing. HTH.

You could take photo's each dressing change to compare. Obviously wont help with the healing but atleast if you have to see a different vet you've got something to go on.
Hope the pad starts to improve soon.

Thank you to all who have replied ref stars foot. We went back to the vets last night and it looked to be improving. Wasn't smelly and could see that the skin was growing. It seems she had a reaction to the gel that was being used on the dressing. The vet is now using just the dressing without the gel and so far so good. I have also been on to ainsworths for a homeopathic remedy to help it heal, so fingers crossed my girl will be back to her usual self sooner rather than later!
Thank you all.
mel.

I know how you feel Jakes had an abcess and we are off to the vets tomorrow to change the dressing, but we are trying to keep him quiet .. Ever tried keeping a border collie quiet, I am hopeful he will be ok to walk in about a week but he is so miserable and keeps whining/moaning to show how sorry he is for himself, nightmare. Can you use melonine dressings on dogs? they dont stick to wounds? and prehaps a neoprene boot to keep it clean? just ideas I am playing with!

I have had amazing results putting honey on cuts. I've used it on myself and 2 of my dogs and I've just used it on a horse that over-reached very badly and cut into the heel of it's front leg with it's rear hoof. Of course, you have to keep it bandaged or the dog will lick it off.

When Sasha sliced a part of her pad off(area little smaller than 20p p coin, almost whole surface of one of her toes :( clear slice off so nothing to stitch together) it healed very quickly, we were actually surprised how quickly it healed!
She was only about young so was probably re-generating really quickly which helped the healing.

We were told to use 50% bedadine/50% water mix, soak a dressing pad in the mixture and bandage it on.
This, I was told is used for working dogs when they hurt their paw to get the paw surface heal as quickly as possible and make the surface grow and harden. I don't know if the english word used by others -granulate- means this?
We were also rinsing the paw with warm running water two times a day (blow drying between toes dry afterwards) meaning the bandage got changed two times a day minimum.
Sasha would sometimes decide it was time for a change and remove it herself :) this is why I say minimum...
As the dressing pad next to the wound was wet (bedadine/water) it didn't stick to the cut either and did not pull any surface off when changed... I have to say it sounded weird way of treating it and I had never heard of it before but it definately worked in our case!

We got given antibiotics to give to Sasha if it looked like there is an infection creeping in but we never had to use them!
She had an antibiotic cream we would put on for first week or so before sticking the bedadine/water soaked pad on it and bandaging it in and this seemed to do the job of keeping the infection away.
We would also take the bandage off for few hours in the evening when she was sleeping so the paw could air...
She would also wear a waterproof sock on the paw when she went out so she could not get nasty outside water/bacteria in the wound.

Also are you sure it is the wound that smells if it doesn't look infected, maybe there is moisture between the toes and when this gets bandaged in I would imagine it would smell after few days?

Honey is good stuff - meant to have natural antibacterial properties as well - don't know if that is all honey or just the manuka. I had a very good result using cod liver oil on a cut on my leg - directly on the wound - cos it wasn't healing - healed much faster!