Cut my dog while grooming.

Dr. Marie replied:

Aw, the poor guy!

First of all, don't feel too bad. This type of thing happens really often. I once worked with a very experienced veterinary technician who was grooming a cat and she thought she was cutting out a matt but she actually cut a massive amount of skin off of the cat and the cat needed stitches!

Your question is a tough one for me to answer without seeing the wound. Ultimately it would be best to have a vet take a look at it to see if it either needs some stitches or possibly some antibiotics. However, a good number of these wounds will heal up on their own. They will often take several weeks to heal over completely.

If Levi is licking at this occasionally (i.e. 4-5 times per day) then I am not too worried about it. But if he is obsessing over it then, yes, an E-Collar would be a good idea. On the other hand, if he is licking obsessively then it may be a sign that it is infected (even if you don't see pus), and therefore he'd need antibiotics.

If you do need an E-collar, you may want to look into something called the Bite-Not Collar. These things are awesome because the dog doesn't need to wear a cone. You can see these here: Bite Not Collar. Another decent type of E-Collar is a soft collar called Trimline.

When I have an animal with an open wound, one thing I will often recommend in order to speed up the healing is something called hydrotherapy. This is where you take a removable showerhead and use a soft stream of lukewarm water over the wound for about 10 minutes, 3 times a day.

I don't usually recommend any creams or lotions at all, and covering it usually is not a good idea.

I hope he heals soon!

Dr. Marie.


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