For the second time now Simba has had his dew claws (useless thumb on a dog) caught onto something and pretty much ripped the entire nail off. There was lots of blood, my poor baby.

So I decided it was finally time to get his dew claws removed. This is a common surgical procedure for dogs, as the dew claws can easily tear off, especially for active, make that hyperactive dogs (Simba). Usually its done when the dogs is young (Simba is 7 now).

Do not get confused with removing the dew claws with declawing, which is the terrible act of removing ALL  the claws, this is only done in cats and never dogs.

It costs me AU$500 (approx US$400) for the surgery and anesthetic. He was ready to go home in 3 hours. Stitches will be removed in about 2 weeks.

Here is Simba’s ordeal:

Before Surgery

The bleeding dew claw soon to be surgically removed

After surgery, Simba eyes can hardly open due to the anaesthetic

One week on, he's wearing a cone to prevent him biting on his bandage

UPDATE: It seems like the cone on Simba to prevent him from biting the stitches was too small. Simba managed to tear away the bandages and even bite away the stitches! When I found out I was horrified, there was a big wound! Worried that the wound may quicky catch infection I quickly took Simba to the 24 hour vet at Essendon airport. The animal hospital was so busy that we had to wait for 40 minutes, it was 1am! At the end, Simba was given antibiotics and I was advised to take simba back to the vet to get his wound re-checked. It’s so unbearable to see Simba gets hurt not to mention his crying didn’t help either. This is as close as I have to experiencing of having a child.

At the end it cost me a further AU$190 (approx US$175). This and the cost of the re stiching and the previous dew claw surgery has cost me close to $1000! For those of you looking to buy a dog, remember that a dog is for life and is a member of the family, don’t dish them out when the going gets touch, you wouldn’t do that to a family member right?

Simba at hospital table at 1am

No related posts.