What To Do About A Puppy's Swollen Paw

The day before yesterday Honey and Ziggy were having their usual fun in the garden when all of a sudden, Honey stopped, plonked her bottom on the ground and lifted her paw. She seemed very unbothered by it, and allowed Paul and I to examine her paw and apply slight pressure to different areas, without any squeals or obvious distress. We couldn't see any signs of cuts, scrapes, thorns or anything - so decided to leave her be and see what happened. For the rest of the day she walked with a slight limp, but other than that - seemed pretty much her usual self.

Yesterday, there seemed to be no improvement in the limp, so we examined her paw again, and this time noticed how she casually pulled it away when we touched a certain area. Now that we had identified the area, we homed in a little, and after pushing some puppy hair aside saw a slight abrasion beside one of her nails. It didn't look too bad, so we bathed it in salt water and went off to bed.

This morning we woke up to find her paw had swollen quite considerably in the night. It is generally advised to take your dog to a Vet if there is any swelling, so we have an appointment this afternoon with our local veterinary surgeon. Honey's starting to get used to the Vets - only a few weeks ago she was there to have stitches in one of her other paws!!

I'm slightly concerned though - when she went for the stitches she had general anaesthetic plus the Vets gave her some antibiotics. I'm not a fan of antibiotics in humans, and don't feel any differently about them when it comes to dogs, especially when they're just wee puppies... I hope they don't want to give her more today. We've given her some garlic with her food this morning, as that it supposed to be good for infections - but I'd love to know more about natural approaches to problems such as these.

I've check out homeopathic vets in the area, and the nearest one is quite a distance away - plus we can't afford insurance that would cover us for complementary therapies at the moment. There are some good insurance companies out there that do provide cover for complementary therapies on your pets, they're just not within our budget at the moment.

I've just phoned that vet to get some advice, so that I'm at least aware of some kind of natural alternative when I visit our local vet later today... I've had to leave a message - and am currently awaiting a reply...

Meanwhile - I'm trying to keep Ziggy and Honey separated when they're playing. I don't think rough and tumble on a poorly paw is wise - plus Ziggy seems to think it's fun to nip Honey's poorly paw!! The joys of having TWO!!!