Post by nicmell19 on Apr 17, 2015 20:09:15 GMT -8
Yesterday morning I took my gerbil Bazzil to vet because his left front paw was bloody and chewed up. He's on oxytetracycline four times a day, and the vet gave him a shot of anti-inflammatory/pain med. She also was able to do an xray, and there was no break (apparently the cutest and tiniest xray every done at the clinic, according to the vet tech). It's hard for me to tell if he is continuing to chew it, or it's just bleeding because of the raw flesh. From what I can tell, he only has two toes left. To make it even worse, when I first adopted Bazzil, he had a lame right front leg. So the poor guy essentially has no use of either front legs. It's been really hard for him to eat so I've been feeding him Critical Care, which he is taking really well. He still likes chewing on his cardboard boxes and TP rolls. My question is, if he ends up completely chewing his front paw off, can he do ok with no functioning front legs? Any suggestions to help discourage him from chewing his paw? I have lots of chewable items in there to hopefully distract him and his brother Monty (I really don't think Monty is chewing on it. They've been together for almost two years, and I have never seen any aggressive behavior). My vet said I could soak the paw in diluted betadine, so I'll start doing that tomorrow.
