EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

Sketch got her “Achilles” tendon on her back leg severed tonight in the grain on a fluke deal. Got the hog. Fixing to make the 4 hour trek to my vet and he’s gonna try to do what he can for her. I have seen a few posts about this. Just want to know what yalls experience with it has been. Seems I’ve seen some mixed outcomes on here. My vet is as good as there is in my opinion, reason I’m making this drive, but even he gave it to me straight, it’s a shot in the dark. Fingers crossed, this dog is all I’ve got left and my simple life revolves around her most days.


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Hope it works out for you and your dog...keep us posted so we can learn about this type of injury...I got a good pups tendon severed years ago and vet couldn’t help him...

I hate to hear that slim. You've had some bad luck with your dogs. I hate it for you bud. On the plus side, even if it isn't able to be repaired, there are more 3 legged working dogs out there than one might think. I knew old man in Louisiana once that ran deer dogs. His fastest dog was a 3 legged gyp according to him, and he was always a pretty straight up guy. A buddy of mine got mine old Yonder female and had to ha e her back leg amputated because of rupturing her Achilles. He was baying hogs solo with her the day after she came home from the vet. So it isn't a death sentence just an alteration. Plus she could still raise pups. Good luck!

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There is a recent post about this. My best gyp cut hers back in March. Took her to 2 vets both said it wasn’t worth trying and I really wish I would’ve found somebody to work on it anyways. Good luck with your gyp.


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Man I called every vet in the coastal bend area. Nobody would touch it for less than a grand and even then everybody said they’d rather not. I got suggested A&M or a Ortho specialist in San Antonio.i called Kurt Kainer out Of Weimar Texas who I’ve used for years. He told me no promises, but for $250 he would do all he could. I just left his office. He managed to find both ends and get it sewed back together. She’s got a cast for the next month and then some slow and serious rehab after, but we’re confident.
  If you are ever in need of a vet, and you can hold that dog on long enough to make it to Weimar Texas, you would be a fool to not call this man.


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Slim I’ll keep that in mind. I really wished I’d kept trying as I lost including her and my other 2 older strike dogs since March. I’m starting all over basically. It’s been a rough go here lately.


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Man I feel ya. Lost a 1.5 year old gyp that was set to be my best dog(puppy out of this sketch gyp) by years end, and another solid strike dog this year already. And now I’ve got this mess to deal with. When it rains, it pours around here


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I hope she heals up for you you sure have had some bad luck lately

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 There’s the hog that done it. 160 lbs maybe. Not even sure how it happened because I never heard them try him. Baying and shooting in the grain at night is pretty dang challenging. (https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200524/e9938aa89680b40ceacf75042d597e75.jpg)
Then we go put sketch up on the truck, kick rocky down again in a Mott and he goes up a little ways and starts barking on the brush line off the road. It’s a bunch of Indian grass so we rolled up thinking it was a hog laid up. Cut the buggy off and I get 2 steps off the road and I heard him. About a 3 ft rattle snake, some how he didn’t get rocky but it was damn close.


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(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200524/8813900c3ea5fdc629f48eaa5341b8b3.jpg)Her pride is hurt and she ain’t a fan of the cast. But she is on the mend


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Man, that look says it all!

sure hope it works for her man,,, the good ones seem to have the bad luck for sure...   

Looks like your not her favorite no more....lol her look definitely says it all....lol hope she heals.

Thanks for all the well wishes guys. She is back to her usual self as far as attitude and spunk. We will see how it heals up and I’ll surely keep this post updated. 

 


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Good deal...hope she recovers completely...

She’s a good looking gyp...is she a Kemmer cross?

No sir. Reuben this is the gyp I bayed in Nixon that day we met. She goes back to some original tater blood from Monty Bennet and some leopard looking dogs out of Oklahoma(I got the dogs names, but never able to track down who actually owned the dogs) and a little bit of Mike Bolen’s blood.


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sure hope she heals up for you.

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Cast came off Monday after 16 days. Looks okay. She has used it a few times, definitely reacts to pain when she has. Vet said there’s gonna be some scar tissue build up between the ligament and the muscle and skin, and breaking that scar tissue loose is probably going to take a while and be a little painful. Keeping her on a 1/2 cc of dex a day to keep swelling down and still have her penned up in a crate in my office at the ranch.
 Talking currently about starting to swim her some in another few weeks to help with rehab once she starts using it to walk travel some. Low impact resistance training. My vet has never done this ligament repair like this and doesn’t know any other vets that’s have done it. So we’re really interested to see how it all plays out. Brainstorming on what we can do to help this along.


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Slim I don't know if you've ever had a cast on or not. I have more than once and can tell you that all kinds of stuff contracts and has to be stretched back out after any length of time. My right arm hurt so bad when they took the cast off that I wanted them to put it back on. It took weeks before I could straighten it back out anywhere near normal. I can't imagine it would be any different for her. That swimming will probably be good for her.

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You might actually try helping her stretch it a little everyday. You'll be able to tell how far to push it.

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For sure. I have been in the morning and evening stretching it out some. I have had many fair share of casts and I remember that same deal. It come off and it almost hurt worse than when it was first broke.  I need to cut the skin stitches on the outside out but I don’t want to push it. Figure she will chew them out over time. The pool sounds like a good idea for sure. After shattering the growth plate in my ankle and tearing my CFL & ATFL and we did a lot of PT in the pool working it back so I could get back to playing ball.


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Pool would be an excellent choice, might can put your thinking cap on and look around the ranch at what all you got to work with and might can come up with some sort of tank taller than her that you can secure a piece of pipe or something to reach the dead center and attach a harness to it and put her in it, you know her better than anybody, go easy first few times and read her body language and pull her out when she starts showing signs of consistent pain and soreness...

Well boys. Sketch will live the rest of her days with just 3 good legs. Surgery was successful in reconnecting the tendon, but the scar tissue build up and swelling didn’t do us any favors. There a lot of extra slack in that hock. I’ll have to get a picture of it, she can plant off of it, but at the point where it becomes stable, it’s over extended by a good bit. Regardless, I was confident it is a strong as it’s going to be. Have been swimming her a few days a week and letting her run loose some. She has had some sure enough hurt feeling watching us load up since she went down so I decided it was as good a time as any to break her back out.
   
  Short story shorter, she is plum out of shape, and the one good back leg ain’t up to speed on having to pick up the slack for the bad one. All that said, she has never had the most ability in the world, but she’s got enough heart for a whole string of dogs and She will die that way. She hit the ground, took a little for her to figure out how to travel, and you could tell she got sore quick. But about an hour or so of hunting, her and rocky cut out a few hundred yards and hit some hogs in a hay field. Hogs wanted to run but they eventually ended up with a little hog caught in the open.
  Don’t know if I’ve smiled so big for such a little hog since I caught my very first one 5.5 years ago. Even my buddies were happy to have her back. We’ve all missed the spunk she brought and the confidence that came with her being out. Little condition ahead and I don’t think it will be too long before I can post a picture sitting behind a big ole bad one she put up bayed for the last time. Fingers crossed she comes in the fall, we damn sure need some more pups off her.


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Good luck brother. Not the result you were looking or hoping for I know but you should find some comfort in the fact that it could've been worse. I hope you have better luck with the next litter.

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I’ve used cbd drops for pain management for my dogs, it seems to help.

Hey Slim,
The hog findin-est dog I’ve ever owned had hers cut smooth through many years ago and I didn’t have the money to even do what you’ve done. Mine just got retired to the back yard for a year. She developed thick scar tissue and will act like she uses the leg, but she’s only using it like she would a crutch or a prosthetic.

After a year of retirement, I took her along one night. She bayed a rally, which busted before we got there, and she went on the relay, baying about 8-10 more singles and ultimately on the last hog she was leaning waaaaaay out over her front shoulders, using the good back leg to bounce forward. It was definitely super strange looking and I still can’t quite figure out how she managed all that.
I’ve let her come along a few more times over the years, but mostly she is just retired.

Give yours plenty of time to heal on her own and I bet she’ll make herself useful again someday!


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Hey Slim,
The hog findin-est dog I’ve ever owned had hers cut smooth through many years ago and I didn’t have the money to even do what you’ve done. Mine just got retired to the back yard for a year. She developed thick scar tissue and will act like she uses the leg, but she’s only using it like she would a crutch or a prosthetic.

After a year of retirement, I took her along one night. She bayed a rally, which busted before we got there, and she went on the relay, baying about 8-10 more singles and ultimately on the last hog she was leaning waaaaaay out over her front shoulders, using the good back leg to bounce forward. It was definitely super strange looking and I still can’t quite figure out how she managed all that.
I’ve let her come along a few more times over the years, but mostly she is just retired.

Give yours plenty of time to heal on her own and I bet she’ll make herself useful again someday!


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(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20201013/929ffb5d0d445533539e0c60f5aff1ee.jpg)
T bob we rehabbed her pretty hard, she’s been back at it pretty regularly for a little while now. This was the last hog she bayed for this year. She is due to drop a litter any day now. She can put the leg down and really go off of it pretty well. I’d say it’s probably at 80% or so of what it was before the injury. After 5-6 miles of tracks it definitely gets a little sore on her and she will favor it some, so I try to keep her from putting pointless miles on it. She casts well enough for the country we hunt so we load her between casts or don’t drop her unless we’re confident it’s a hog around.


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