FEATURED DOG
Guvner Ahnold Update!
As of the middle of September, Guv has been released from the ortho surgeon! His leg has healed much better and much faster than expected and he is now "naked"....no wrap, no splint! He has a month or so of slow return to normal activity and then he will go for his regular vet work (neuter, dental, etc.) and the next step for our Guv will be a search for that special home.
Guvner Ahnold
It started with a phone call on a Wednesday from a trainer up at the Ebro track. She had gotten my name from someone who said we take broken leg dogs. She trained for Love a Hound Kennel which was owned by her father. They were out of Wisconsin and I believe this was their first time at a Florida track.
Tammy didn’t want to put this dog down but no one was able to help her with him and they didn’t have the money to repair his leg. He had broken the leg the Friday before and was sitting in his crate with his leg splinted and wrapped by the track vet. I was told that the bone was trying to come through the skin.
I told Tammy we would take the dog and could she get him to us….she replied that she had no car and no way to get him down to our farm. I told her that we could meet someone half way but it was difficult to leave the farm to drive all the way up to the Panhandle. It took her a few days but she found someone to meet Bob in Tallahassee on Saturday.
I spoke with our orthopedic surgeon on Friday and told him that we were getting a possible compound fracture on Saturday and they agreed to hold a surgery slot for him on Tuesday, the day after the Memorial Day holiday. I was told the dog had been rewrapped by the track vet and was on some oral antibiotics. The big concern was the amount of time between injury and treatment. (the holiday weekend didn’t help this at all)
We took the big boy in to Orlando on Tuesday morning and the leg was in bad shape due to massive infection. At that point there was no safe way to operate...he had a shattered central tarsal bone and a badly fractured calcaneus bone which was protruding through the skin. Dr. Peck asked to keep Guvner Ahnold at the clinic so they could work on the leg. The area needed to be cleaned and debrided and he needed to be given IV antibiotics in hopes that they could get him to the point that they could repair the leg. Our concern was that he would lose the leg because of the infection.
We all got lucky...by Friday they decided to operate as now there was a concern that the bone would die and the surgery would not be successful. Our big boy now sports the largest bone plate they had in the clinic, 12 surgical screws, some wire, a pin or two and bone grafts. Thanks to the supreme skill of our surgeons, Guvner Ahnold still has four legs!
As of this writing he will be going for more x-rays next week and we will have a better idea of how the healing is proceeding. He has had his bandage and splint changed weekly and so far there is no sign of recurring infection.
Why have I gone into such detail with this story? Because what started out as just another phone call with a request to help a broken leg dog has turned into a complicated issue. And maybe it’s time that more people understand the complexities of trying to save the life of a racing greyhound. And maybe it’s time we all spoke a bit more about just who is responsible for these dogs.
Guv’s surgery cost $3751.86 with a discount of $750.37. We spent another $112 for Clavamox (which was the only drug that would kill the combination of bacteria that was cultured from the wound) plus the Rimadyl and Tramadol that I always keep at home in our doggie pharmacy. We also have paid $20 twice for bandage changes and it will run about $200 each time he needs follow up x-rays.
Love a Hound Kennel contributed $200. The registered owner of this dog was never contacted when he broke his leg. I was told the owner didn’t want the dog back.
Let me explain a point: when we agree to take a dog with a broken leg, we often have no idea of the severity of the injury. Occasionally we get lucky and all the dog needs is a splint and wrap and crate rest for six to eight weeks and he or she is good to go. Other times the dog requires extensive surgery to repair the leg. Once the commitment is made to take the dog we will do what’s necessary to “fix” the dog. There is no way that we will tell a dog that it is going to die because we don’t have the money to fix the leg. But that happens every day on the track. To give you an example: a few weeks ago this same trainer called me in the evening from the track. They had broken another leg and “they” were telling her that she either had to take the dog to the emergency vet to be treated or the dog needed to be euthanized. She called me hoping that she could take the dog to the vet and I would pay the bill by phone and then take the dog. They did not have the money to help this little greyhound. And sadly, neither did I.
Two weeks ago I received a call from a lady in Oklahoma who was audibly upset….she was Guv’s owner and she had just been informed by letter from an investigator for the State of Florida that her dog had broken his leg back on May 19. No one had ever called her to tell her and ask what she wanted done with him. However, someone at Ebro had filed a complaint with the state over the condition of this dog while he waited in a crate for over a week with a compound fracture.
In speaking with this lady, I was told that she had asked to take back all of her dogs and this particular one had a home to go to after he was done racing. Now, I didn’t ask her if she would have been able to pay for repairing his leg, but she did offer to pay us a sum of money each month.
What’s the point of all of this? We have a trainer who does not want to kill dogs but can’t afford to fix a broken leg (and you can ask them how many broken legs they have had this meet). We have an owner that may or may not be able to pay either but never even knows the dog is injured. And you have adoption groups who will help when they have enough money in the bank to pay for surgery. You also have a caring greyhound public who are constantly reaching deep into their pockets so that dogs like Guvner Ahnold can live.
Who is responsible for these dogs? Think about it...
