Pet of the Year is George, the Saluki. WARNING Contains graphic images

By John Morgan | Dated December 27, 2017

George is a wonderful 8-year-old Saluki who presented to Gordon Vets tragically for being struck by a car. His foot was badly damaged and bleeding profusely. Priority number one when George arrived at Gordon Vets was pain relief. Dr John gave a high dose of pain relief until the team went ahead with an anaesthesic to allow us to look as his wounds without him being in pain. This also allowed us to get X-rays of the area.

Once we had examined the wounds we had some good news and some bad news:

The Good News:

While the injury was severe X-rays showed us the only bone broken was the ulna in an area where it will heal without consequence and won’t need repairing.

The Bad News:

George had an injury that is referred to colloquially as “Road Pizza”. Most of the skin, tendons and even the outside of a joint in the area had been removed by the accident.

This left us with 2 options – amputation or regular bandage changes and cleaning of the wound until the skin could grow back over the wound.

Lucky for George his owners were willing to devote the time and care involved in regularly rebandaging his wounds. George needed a sedative every second day up to twice weekly as his wounds improved so we could remove any diseased tissue, flush the wounds and assess how it was healing.

After 3 months of intensive treatment (just enough time for all the nurses and vets to fall head-over-heals for George!) his wounds healed and he is gradually getting back to full activity!

Because of the injuries to the tendons and supporting structures (when his joint was exposed) and some instability of the affected joint, George may need to have a pan-tarsal arthrodesis. Try saying that three times fast! Basically, this procedure involves plating over the area and removing all joints so that he is pain free and can return to normal, full paced Saluki behaviour!