Symptoms Of A Sprung Toe?

[woody2shoes]

Hi all,

Could anyone who has had experience with dogs with sprung toes, please tell me how the condition presents itself?

I have a young whippet who has had issues with a particular toe on two occasions now and I'm beginning to wonder if she may have a sprung toe.

Thanks.

w2s

[Healthy4Paws]

Hi all,

Could anyone who has had experience with dogs with sprung toes, please tell me how the condition presents itself?

I have a young whippet who has had issues with a particular toe on two occasions now and I'm beginning to wonder if she may have a sprung toe.

Thanks.

w2s

a problem of racing Greyhounds characterized by dislocation of the proximal interphalangeal joint (the top joint on the digit) through rupture of the medial collateral ligament. The toe is displaced laterally, usually overriding the next toe.

[whippets]

Sprung toes have alot of "give" in them and is a very common injury among racers (we've had a few of them). The toe can also be sprung upwards with the toe nail pointing almost straight up into the air. Our old boy has a sprung toe at the moment, we just tape it when he is let out for a wee so he doesn't do more damage.

[kelpiekaye]

My kelpie has a sprung toe. It sticks up and is very loose. I took her to a vet who said there was not much to be done and it may need to be amputated at some stage. I then took her to a greyhound chiropracter who said it would come ok in time. It wasnt the cause of the lameness as I thought, she has something in her toepad like glass or a thorn that hopefully we will be able to get out in the near future. You could try taping the toes together. Goodluck.

[woody2shoes]

My kelpie has a sprung toe. It sticks up and is very loose.

Sprung toes have alot of "give" in them and is a very common injury among racers. The toe can also be sprung upwards with the toe nail pointing almost straight up into the air.

The toe is displaced laterally, usually overriding the next toe.

Thanks everyone...well, the nail in question tends to point downwards if anything. There is no lateral displacement and it certainly does not point upwards so in retropect, I do not think this is a Sprung Toe at all.

My girl originally hurt her outside toe (right foreleg) about 8 weeks ago. I saw her scramble through some pig fencing at a rate of knots chasing down a tennis ball, and return on 3 legs looking very sore and sorry for herself. There was a little bit of bleeding from around the nail bed at the time and the toe swelled up. I was convinced it was a torn nail. However, despite being sedated at the vets the following day, it would not give an inch and was ultimately trimmed back hard and bandaged. She was put on antibiotics & anti inflams and came good after a few days.

Since then, she has been belting around as good as gold on it - and I mean she has been chasing balls hard, leaping into and retrieving from water, scrambling up and down channel banks and generally running absolutely stupid.

Then she suddenly pulled up on three legs again while just playing in the house yard on Tuesday. Same toe, it swelled up just the same and she was very sore. On closer examination, I can now see that the injured part of the nail has grown down about half way and that it was damaged quite badly the first time - there is quite a deep, thick diagonal cut part way through it. Not enough to break off completely but more than enough to catch it again and give the toe a good reef in the process, hence the swelling and soreness???

I treated her with anti inflams again and she was much, much better the following morning and by that night, was moving quite comfortably on it. Today, she is moving perfectly fine and shows no sign of favouring it and I have not medicated her at all. There seems little point taking her to a vet unless she does it again. I will simply make sure she gets seen the same day so they can get an accurate picture of what's going on. Best case scenario is that the nail will break off at some point of its own accord...and stop giving her grief!

Thanks again for all your feedback. I hope your dogs make speedy recoveries!

w2s