Pet care: Horseplay. It's fun – until it isn't

First in a series.

We were just wrapping up a routine day of limping, itching and diarrhea (uh, my patients, not me) when Jamie arrived. She’d been frolicking in the pasture with the neighbor horses when she was kicked by a creature 20 times her size. I remember her sad gaze from the treatment table.

This 11-year-old black and white Australian shepherd was no stranger. Jamie was one of three dogs in Cathy and Jeff Robb’s home, each an obedience competitor. They meant everything to their people, in part because of the years they had all invested in building trust and commitment. Their people wanted only the best medical care for them. Sweet, smart and gentle, Jamie was my favorite.

With my steady and competent veterinary nurse, Amos, holding our trauma patient’s shoulders, I carefully examined every other part of her anatomy first. Going directly for the obvious, and possibly missing other injuries or a traumatic heart arrhythmia, would not have been thorough medicine. When everything else checked out, I gently rubbed this good girl’s head while gingerly raising her lips. Her upper jaw was only partially caved in, but her mandible, the lower jaw, had suffered a compound fracture between the third and fourth premolar teeth. The front and rear halves of that broken bone were so far apart that they were hardly in the same county. At 5:30, our day was just beginning.

Jamie’s idyllic life changed in a split second when her face was in the wrong place at the wrong time — the receiving end of a lightning-fast equine appendage. Horsing around with a young stallion is fun until somebody gets hurt. Confident and brash, this arrogant stud wasn’t going to tolerate some pip-squeak dog herding him.

There was no time to lose. Jamie was hurting. I started an IV catheter for shock doses of fluids and corticosteroids while Amos took X-rays of Jamie’s jaw, chest and abdomen. Finding no internal damage, we heaved a sigh of relief and pushed ahead with anesthesia.

Next week: Would Jamie ever eat normally?

• For help with behavior problems, you can sign-up for a Zoom Group Conference on my website, drjeffnichol.com.