Fractures of the paws in dogs and cats do not need surgery!

Fractures of the paws are best handled with splints ideally if there's at least one metacarpal or metatarsal bone that is intact that makes life a lot easier because you're already working with a bit of an internal splint which kind of helps hold everything together. Don't worry that they're not totally properly aligned the body will take care of that with time even with all four metacarpal or metatarsals fractured you can simply splint that paw until it's healed.

The problem with metacarpals and metatarsals is that they're slow healing bones they do not have a huge fabulous blood supply like the femur and the humerus that's surrounded with muscles they're only surrounded by tiny little muscles and tendons if not and therefore they are slow healing bones. If you are dealing with an adult dog you splint the fractured Paws you can expect that it's going to take a minimum minimum of eight weeks often up to 12 weeks so prepare your client prepare your staff because these are going to take quite a while before they heal which means bandage changes splint changes on a regular basis and honestly they're a pain but they will do they will heal they will heal fine without surgery.

The thing with surgery with these fractures is that the healing itself still will take a long time and often because we're just dealing with a a small pin that we'll place in the metacarpals OR metatarsals they often still do need to be splinted. Also pinning such a small bone that has a poor blood supply is already causing more disruption to the blood supply so surgical repair of metacarpal and metatarsal fractures is also fraught with a lot of complications.

With Paw fractures metacarpal metatarsals in a mature animal it's just going to be a long journey clearly if it's a puppy or kitten they'll heal relatively quickly. If you are dealing with the phalangeal fractures a phalangeal fracture again splinting is the best way to go at least until the pain is disseminated is kind of reduced and then some people just leave them without without anything because splinting Paws and managing splints and bandages long term on positive dogs can and cats can be frustrating for everybody involved.

Sometimes if it's the distal phalanx amputating the digit might be the just the the fractured digit might be the quickest way to deal with it especially if it's the second or the fifth digit something to consider. But your best bet with pause splint them don't get too excited if you don't see callous formation after eight weeks it's going to take a while.

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