Meet Buddy, a 5month old Chihuahua puppy, weighing in at a grand total of 2.6kg, (and two thirds of that is his ears!). This little dude took a tumble and sustained a particularly nasty fracture to his foreleg, his bone breaking out at his growth plate, just 5millimetres above his wrist joint surface. His main foreleg bone was just 6mm thick at its widest point. Colleagues at Vets4Pets Penzance stabilised him, and he was transferred to join our surgical list yesterday at Glebe Vets, Lezant.
Fortunately, when we first set up VetCW surgical team, we decided we would carry the widest possible range of trauma repair implants, so no patient would have to wait for the equipment their fracture needs to be ordered and delivered, be they the greatest of Great Danes or the smallest of…well, Chihuahua puppies.
Buddy’s fracture was repaired under magnification with a 1.5mm Locking/Compression T-plate, part of our stock from supplier Veterinary Orthopaedics. His surgery went very well, and as you can see from his immediate post-op radiographs, the screws are placed in his reconstructed radius to compress and stabilise ‘lock’ his fracture robustly against the specialised plate.
Buddy’s owners will be returning home from their unexpectedly eventful Cornwall holidays; we’ll now keep in touch with their primary care practice in Coventry throughout Buddy’s recovery.