Wound care

[Freedom]

Cindy, I'd ask a vet. Generally, you want a puncture wound to heal from the bottom up, not the typical top down. So you try to keep it open at the top, you don't want to trap infection in there.

[Jessika]

Puncture wounds are different than general lacerations... she is right, puncture wounds you want to heal from the inside out, as if they don't, they will seal in bacteria and it will appear to be healed on the outside.... fast forward a few days/weeks, suddenly you have a nasty abscess. If you think something is a puncture wound, the first step would obviously be to call your vet to evaluate if it needs to be seen and to ask how your vet would recommend treating it from that point. Generally they need to be sterilly flushed out.


And I also wanted to clear up some misconceptions about allowing dogs to lick their wounds... dogs' mouths do not contain bacteria that help "clean" the wound any more than our mouths do. In some cases, licking it is ok, but oftentimes what happens is they lick it and cause additional irritation to the wound/skin around the wound and makes it worse.

[Freedom]

Yep, that's why we have to use an E collar when the pup has a hot spot! NO LICKING ALLOWED!!!

[Taz_Zoee]

Thanks you guys. Luckily he wasn't excessively licking it. I just checked it and it is healing nicely. I will continue to check it until it is gone.