An Edinburgh dog owner has praised hero vets for saving the leg of his Border Collie after it suffered a horror injury.
Gordon Aitchison, from Balerno, was beside himself with worry after his two-year-old dog, Wyn, shattered his leg after crashing into a gate.
The owner feared that Wyn’s agility performing days were over after he saw blood pouring from his dog’s leg, thinking that it may have to be amputated.
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But he has heralded East Neuk Vets in Fife for piecing the young canine back together with plates and screws during a major surgery.
Unbelievably, Wyn has since recovered and has now triumphed during his first agility trials since the accident.
Both Gordon and Wyn now have their sights set on glory at Crufts despite the horrendous injury that the talented hound suffered.
“I’ve got six other dogs and Wyn was running flat out and looking back at them when he smacked into a half-open gate in the field,” said Gordon.
“When I put my hands under to try and lift him back onto his feet, his leg was just hanging, and there was blood coming from where the bone had punctured his thigh.
“I knew right away how serious it was. It was just devastating to see, and I didn’t know if he was maybe going to lose the leg.”
Wyn had to be rushed for emergency vet treatment due to the severity of the fracture and was sent to East Neuk Vets in St Monans in Fife.
“Wyn had a severe fracture of the femur and the bone had pierced the skin,” said Padraig Egan from East Neuk Vets.
“The soft tissue damage to muscle, nerves and blood vessels in open fractures can cause permanent disability, and if bacteria get in, infection can be devastating.
“We flushed the site with sterile fluid and removed all the contaminated tissue. We then had to make a large incision to bring all the broken bone pieces into alignment and repair the fracture with a bone plate and screws.
“The recovery was just beginning after Wyn left the theatre as he then needed intensive physiotherapy to avoid fibrosis occurring.”
Despite fearing that his dog would lose a leg, Gordon was over the moon that the procedure went well and he set about nursing Wyn back to health by following a strict rehabilitation regime.
“The vet nurses at East Neuk showed me how to manipulate his leg to retain as full a range of movement as possible,” said Gordon.
“It was a real learning curve, and I had to do it three or four times a day for months as well as taking him to physiotherapy.
“Wyn was the model patient, never yelping or complaining once.”
After all the rehab, Gordon realised Wyn was well enough to restart agility training and he won his first event in April, following it up with more successes in May.
He has already moved up to Grade 3, and Gordon is looking to Wyn having a bright future in the agility world.
“It was amazing to see him win just nine months after he was basically a goner,” said Gordon.
“He has great potential and if I can keep up with the skill levels, I hope we can go to achieve Grade 7 and qualify to compete at Crufts. I can’t thank the team at East Neuk enough for all they did.”
With another puppy from the same litter already having competed at Crufts, Gordon is hoping his talented hound could also now be a future star at the world’s most famous dog show.
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