On one of his recent escapades running loose through the neighborhood, my Vizsla, Cooper, ended up with a nasty open sore on one of his foot pads. Of course, he didn’t want to leave it alone, and I didn’t want to put him in one of those ridiculous Elizabethan collars, so I did a bit of research on bandaging on a dog. Thought you might be interested in what I found.
First, of course, you want to make sure the injured area is clean and treated with an antibiotic cream, then you want to bandage it to keep it clean, keep the medication in place, and keep the dog from worrying over the spot and creating a potential hot spot.
Put a gauze square over the antibiotic ointment, then wrap the area with a strip of gauze to keep the square in position and to provide extra padding to protect against bumps. This part is just the same as what you would do for your two-legged children or for yourself.
The hard part with a dog is that any bandage becomes an immediate chew toy, so you need to find a way to keep the dog’s mouth away from the bandage. If the boo-boo is on his or her torso, you might try putting a T-shirt on your dog, putting his front paws through the arm holes and tying the hem of the shirt around his mid-section.
If the bandage is on a paw, the easiest solution is to put a heavy tube sock over the injured leg. You can use a large rubber band or some bandage tape to keep the sock up. Make sure you allow enough wiggle room that the leg circulation is not cut off. You should be able to insert at least one of your fingers inside the top of the sock after you have taped it closed. If the leg swells, make sure you re-check the bandage for tightness.
There is a product called Vetrap which is available in pet stores. It comes in several bright colors from 3M. You may have seen it used at blood donation drives to create pressure bandages.. It is an elastic bandage that sticks to itself and can be wound around the gauze layer or used to hold a sock up on the dog’s leg.
Let us know what you’ve tried that has worked.
Until next time,
Good day, and good dog!
To all….
Another possible scam! I ordered potty patch from company called “Pet Zoom Pet Park.” After receiving confirmation via email with order number and checking my card’s pending transaction noted on my account, I contacted them to see when they were going to send them out. When I called the first time, they could not find my order. Following their direction of faxing over the docs to their manager named Monica, I did another follow up call after 3 days. They told me she was not to pick up phone calls. Huh? I waited another week to see if anything was happening with my order. No email, no phone calls from them. I finally called again only to find out that they could not find my order, they never received my fax (which I had confirmation of faxed docs in hand) and I had to mention that I will report to BBB in Connecticut for her to get on the phone. They hung up on me. Called back. Same crap. Monica finally gets on the phone. At this time I was so upset about this whole thing that she needs to research what is going on with my order and need to return my phone call! Well, never received a phone call.
PLEASE DO NOT ORDER FROM THEM! YOU WILL NEVER SEE YOUR PRODUCT!!!
Their website is: petzoompetpark.com