Paca's dew claw

Last week Paca hurt herself while running outside, Art noticed a change in her play but her being a bulldog and being tuff and all that she didn't let on to something being wrong until a bit later on in the day when I noticed her constantly licking her dew claw. Upon investigation it looked like the claw was split, there wasn't really anything that could be done about it except to remove the whole claw - a declaw. She was keeping it clean and I'm sure soothing herself because it no doubt hurt - even a tuff bulldog like Paca.

The next day she re-injured her claw, this time I was supervising and I seen exactly what caused injury and it was a spike nail sticking up out of some landscape timbers that were almost completely decayed or just missing wood. It was bleeding but other than being split there wasn't a big concern, it would heal and she would heal it herself. If there was an extra dime I would feel better taking her to the vet for a tetanus shot. I tended to the spike nail and every other potential hazard I could pound into the ground with a small sledge hammer. The dogs seemed to get a kick out of me cursing the metal that hurt my Paca girl as I pounded them bastard nails into the ground.

Then today I found a bit of blood on the dog bed. I called Paca over to me and sure enough her claw looks horrible, something has happened for the worse, the whole area is swollen, the nail looks very funky - she needs to go to the vet.

I haven't been able to recover financially from our move and will sacrifice my lunches and my own medicine for the next week to get her to the vet - but sadly that isn't enough. I will be calling tomorrow to see how much an office visit is and we will go from there. Her dew claw is going to have to be amputated, there will be medicine (for her), and who knows what else.

Not going to cry, not going to make Paca feel any worse than she does. I'll suck up my end, but could really use a helping hand to get Paca to the vet - she doesn't deserve to suffer.

The pain before was nothing compared to what she is suffering right now.

We just moved to this area and I haven't had a chance to secure us a new vet, was working on two located fairly close, didn't want our first visit to be like this - oh well - some things you just can't plan - eh!

Really didn't want to pick our next vet by a low office charge - but guess what!

In the morning I will be posting what few items (of value), I have left to eBay and craigslist to get together enough funds for this emergency vet visit. Poor Paca!