One thing almost all animal lovers have in common is the need to give the best care possible to their pets and foster pets. When Trixie arrived at my home she did not have any raw bleeding patches on her. Within a few weeks she had not one but TWO! I felt like I had joined the International Society for Irresponsible Pet Owners!!!

In reality, these two pressure wounds gave me great insight into the right bedding and the right way to use her support braces. A longer term win-win for Trixie and I.

Braces and Blankets: Trial and error for Trixie

Support Brace

The first pressure sore was from her support brace. I started putting it on for about 15 minutes at a time… it should have been about 5ish minutes with a slow build up. Despite learning from some of the resource materials at Tripawds, I still mistakenly thought that if the dog was stationary then the new support brace wasn’t causing friction and wouldn’t affect the skin area around it and so could stay on a bit longer. Wrong! That’s rookie logic!

I also got distracted a couple of times by other animal activities and forgot to remove it for almost 2 hours! Lesson learned. Since it was a lesson learned at Trixie’s expense I felt bad… what I had to remind myself was that this was the first time she’d had the opportunity to even get a support brace.

I had to stop using the support brace until the pressure wound healed and then start from fresh… very slowly. So far so good.

Bedding

Trixie then developed another pressure sore on her amputation nub. Now I was confused. What had changed for her since she left the doggie rescue home and come to mine? Her favourite spot to lie on!

She was used to sleeping on mattresses and resting on grassy patches. Now her favourite spot was the sunbed recliner. Being all weather proof it’s comfortably cushioned but with an almost abrasive fabric. I wasn’t putting a soft blanket on it. I do now. I wrap cheap washable baby soft blankets on her favourite recliner and the doggies mattresses now. Problem solved.

Her favorite sun bed: Last winter (June-August for us in Paraguay) before the indoor sun lounge was complete, I put blankets on Trixie but not under her. The blinds are down to reduce cold winds.
I also used fairly coarse blankets on the doggie floor mattresses. These were too harsh on her amputation nub.
Above and below: Her little nub was starting to become raw.
A raw weepy spot was developing.

Just Right!

She now has a baby soft washable blanket on her favourite day bed and her support brace for short incremental periods while enjoying her mornings outside. Below: The rest of the day she’s on her sofa in our new sun lounge.
From a nervous dog with mobility issues in a big free-range rescue home to Queen of the Sofa with her 3 buddies that came with her.