Split nails hurt like heck!

Gracie and I were zoomin' around the cabin last week with Mum cheering us on, when suddenly Gracie didn't finish her last lap.

Mum went around the cabin looking for her and found her in her 'dug up dirt cool spot' and she started licking at her back foot. Mum looked down and saw blood all over Gracie's pinkie toe.

Mum took Gracie inside to take a look and saw that Gracie's pinkie toe nail was split almost half way down. Ouch!!! Out came the first aid kit, peroxide to clean the ouch, Traumeel cream to numb just a tad and help heal it up. And then she added the dreaded vet wrap.

Mum was able to later look even closer at Gracie's nail and noticed her toe was very red, sort of bruised, at the base of the nail. Which probably means that Gracie got the nail caught and got it twisted too. Big ouch! Since I've had a dislocated toe before, Mum was sure checked to see if the toe was dislocated or broken, just in case. But Gracie didn't show any signs of either.

Over the next few days Gracie had to go out with her foot wrapped up (something she did not like) with one of Mum's socks tied up to her hock to keep it on.

Since Gracie was signed up for a trial on Sunday, we weren't sure she could run, and decided to just wait and see. Mum could always see if she handled Gamblers well (with just jumps, tunnels, chute) and then see how she felt for Standard and hitting some of the contact obstacles.

By Saturday, Gracie was feeling better and even let Mum trim a little off the nail, and dremel a little to make it smoother, so she wouldn't get it caught on anything.

So off we went to the trial on Sunday. A good friend of ours watched Gracie in Gamblers to see how she was handling her toe during the run and neither one of us saw any discomfort.

Mum ran her in Standard and even though Gracie was a kind of unfocused, she took her nice running dog walk like a pro, even hitting the contact! Woo hoo!

Here's a photo of her nail today (it's really dirty since she just came inside from the morning jaunt, and is ready for more dremeling). But it's looking real good and doesn't even bother her if Mum touches, now.

She healed that split nail up really quickly! Split nails can be very bad if split further down than Gracie's, even to the point of having to have a vet take the nail out. So glad we didn't have to go there!