Ember's Toe

Because several people were concerned and asked, I figured I would explain.

One toe on Ember's hind leg now twists sideways. You can see it if she stands the right way or sits, or walks on it funny. I noticed her hip was swaying differently when she walks. I did notice changes when she first started having issues with the drain/grate objects. But I thought it was more with the avoiding behavior. I want to kill whoever at Petsmart grooming caused it. But it explains why she's so afraid of drains now, because she ended up with a physical injury we were not aware of.

I have been paying more attention since we discovered it a while back. She does walk funny on it at points and it has effected the way she walks or shifts her weight, which in turn effects how she stands and tries to do the tasks I ask of her when bracing or counterbalancing. A few times it has made her lose her footing or bump into me.

I just wish we would have seen it sooner. The doctor didn't even see it the first time. Ember had a checkup just to make sure she looked okay and didn't have any obvious injuries when all this first happened upwards of probably a year ago. They manipulated everything and said she was okay. With her full coat and fuzz feet you couldn't clearly see it. Ember's fur was juuust long enough over the toe.

This time around the vet's groomer offered to do a full cut and trim it all back since she knew we were moving to a warmer area, and that's when we realized it was twisted. The doc looked at it before we left town and manipulated it and said it was an injury that had healed and may have been fractured but was hard to tell without xrays. We couldn't afford them, so he said to keep an eye on it because it could give her problems if it developed arthritis, somehow became reinjured, etc.

My worry is sometimes I think it does hurt her, and she is just very good at hiding it. Animals in general are good at hiding signs of injury or illness. She is also a high drive dog. She's worked herself to exhaustion and near heat stroke playing in our yard when she was younger, because she just keeps going. She wants to please so badly, and I have to slow her down and stop her and make her take breaks. So it really makes me wonder how driven she is to work despite pain and discomfort. I know other people who have dogs as driven, who kept working despite pain and injury that wasn't physically obvious.

We'll wait and see.