Our poodle fell off the back of the chair. In the process of doing so he hit is toenail and ripped it out at the quick. The bleeding has stopped and he is only favouring it a little. Do you think he needs to go to the vet? I am worried about it getting infected, but it is the weekend and our vet is now closed. He won’t let us mess with it at all, it is making it harder to determine what to do. Any suggestions or emergency sites on the web please post. I am pretty upset right now and don’t know what to do. He isn’t really acting like it is bothering him to much (probably bothering me more than it is him).
Do you have the phone number of an emergency vet clinic? You can call them for advice on what to do. Something similar happened years ago to my dog. His eyesight wasn’t good and he accidentally ran too close by the corner of a wall, thus losing a toenail. It bled. I put pressure on it for a few minutes to stop the bleeding and cleaned it to prevent infection. The toenail eventually grew back.
Once our dog’s nail seemed to spontaneously fall out during a walk. We didn’t notice until he walked into the kitchen and left all these bloody footprints.
We took him to the vet, but she said it’s fairly common and that although all the blood is alarming, it’s not very serious.
I’d want to make sure it was clean and not likely to get infected though.
Our old Bouvier once ripped out his dewclaw by trying to climb the fence. It bled copiously and claw part was still sort of hanging there by a strip of skin. Yuck. He let me clip it off (he was a good dog, that one) clean and bandage it.
We took him in to the vet just to be on the safe side. They just shaved the surrounding fur off to aid healing, gave it another cleaning and did a better job bandaging it. They told us it’s no big deal and heals well on it’s own, but it couldn’t hurt to have it looked at if it’s bothering you.
Thanks everyone. He seems to be fine with it ( I am the one that needed a doc). It did bleed a bunch and I got scaird. There were bloody paw prints all over the place. It quit bleeding and we put him in the tub to clean it, dryed him off, and left it at that. He doesn’t seem to be the least bit bothered with it right now. I will see how he is doing tomorrow. I am a little worried about infection right now, because our yard is very muddy from all the rain and he does go out to use the bathroom. I will be keeping my eye out for any sign of infection. Right now I am glad I got calmed down. Shewww.
You can clean the area with hydrogen peroxide. He may not let you get close enough to clean it with a cotton ball or a Q-tip, but you can pour a little over the affected area. It may sting a little bit, but not as much as rubbing alcohol. If he lets you get close to clean the area, after you can put Neosporin on the area to help it heal.