The whole thing lasts about four seconds. Two dogs meet at the off-leash park, a disagreement breaks out over a tennis ball neither of them brought, and both dogs morph into their best impression of the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes: a spinning cloud of teeth, saliva, and the occasional leg sticking out. Then it's over. Both owners apologize at the same time, both dogs shake it off, and you go off to survey the damage.
Sometimes when your dog is bitten by another dog, you run your hands over him and find... not much. A wet spot on his shoulder. Maybe two tiny pink dots, if you part the fur and squint. Sometimes you'll find some bloody fur, an open wound, or a flap of skin. And sometimes still you don't find anything until you're at home watching TV and you notice a red stain on the couch next to you.
Wounds come in a wide variety, and we never really know how bad something is going to be until a few days later. When a cat gets bitten, we often don't know about it until they skip a meal, start limping, or avoid their favorite resting spot. That's why it's always a good idea to get things checked out and keep an eye on the area to make sure everything is healing as expected.
If your dog or cat was bitten, cut, or has a lump that wasn't there last week, call us at (970) 851-8751. You can fill out our intake form from the passenger seat, and we'll be ready for you at our Fort Collins clinic during open hours.
My Dog Was Bitten by Another Dog. What Do I Do Right Now?
If your dog was bitten by another dog or cut by something sharp, give us a call. If the area is bleeding, apply some pressure and cover the wound loosely. But most of the time there isn't much bleeding at all and the best move is to get into the car as soon as possible.
The goal at home is to keep the blood on the inside, the dirt on the outside, and the tongue as far away as you can. But protect yourself first. A pet in pain can bite even their favorite person. If you don't feel like you can clean or wrap the area safely, then don't do it at all.
- Press on anything that's bleeding. Hold a folded towel or gauze firmly over the spot, and don't peek; every peek can tear off the clot that was just forming. If blood soaks through, add a layer on top instead of peeling the first one away.
- Rinse away dirt with lukewarm water. Avoid hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol, and the tea tree oil your yoga instructor swears by. Peroxide and alcohol can damage healthy tissue. A few drops of concentrated tea tree oil can poison a pet.
- Cover it loosely. A T-shirt over a chest or belly wound, or a clean sock slipped loosely over a paw, usually keeps your pet from licking it on the drive in.
- Call us. Tell us what happened, when, and how your pet is acting.
With a bite, first aid is as much as you should do at home. Do not give anything from your own medicine cabinet (ibuprofen and naproxen are on the list of most common pet toxins for a reason). If pressure isn't slowing the bleeding, or your pet is struggling to breathe, weak, or pale in the gums, come straight in to the nearest open emergency hospital.
Why Is a Dog Bite Wound Worse Than It Looks?
A dog bite wound is usually worse than it looks because most of the damage happens under the skin. Teeth punch through and the jaw clamps down and shakes. Underneath, tissue gets crushed and torn, while the skin on top ends up with a couple of neat little holes. When a bigger dog grabs a small dog or a cat, that shake can reach the ribs, lungs, or belly.
Your dog's skin works a lot like a fitted sheet: loose, stretchy, and anchored in fewer places than you'd hope. When a tooth goes through the sheet into the mattress and then gets yanked sideways, the mattress tears in a wide pocket while the sheet slides back into place with one tidy hole.
Every bite also comes with a free sample of whatever lives in the other animal's mouth, pushed deep into that pocket, where it's warm, sealed in, and has nothing but time to settle in. Infection can take hold within a day or two, often before anyone has found the wound.
Why Do Cat Bites Turn Into Abscesses?
If your cat got bit by another cat, the wound often turns into an abscess, because a cat's long, needle-thin teeth leave tiny, deep punctures that seal over almost right away and trap bacteria underneath. The infection usually shows up a few days later as a warm, swollen, painful lump.
Let's say Olive, your indoor-outdoor cat, comes home Tuesday looking perfectly smug. By Friday she's a loaf under the bed who growls when you touch her back leg. Sometimes the abscess bursts before anyone finds it, and the first clue is a damp, matted patch of fur and a smell that makes the litter box seem charming by comparison. On a leg or tail, where the skin is tight, the infection can spread through the tissue instead, so the whole leg or tail swells.
An abscess that has burst or popped still needs a visit, since the hole often seals over before the pocket underneath has finished draining. Treatment usually means opening, draining, and flushing it, often under sedation, plus antibiotics and pain medication. Depending on the wound, how it happened, and your cat's vaccines, your doctor may also recommend testing for FIV and feline leukemia, which can spread through saliva and bites.
When Does a Wound Need the Emergency Vet?
Bring your pet to the emergency vet right away for any of these:
- Bleeding that keeps soaking through pressure
- Any bite from another animal that broke the skin
- A cut that gapes open, or one where you can see pink or red tissue, fat, or muscle underneath
- Wounds on the chest, belly, neck, face, or eyelids, or over a joint
- Trouble breathing, pale gums, weakness, or a belly that looks swollen
- Any contact with a skunk, bat, raccoon, fox, or coyote
- Swelling, heat, pus, or a bad smell around an older wound, especially in a pet who's hiding or not eating
A shallow scrape that has stopped bleeding and doesn't gape can often be watched at home, like a skinned knee. A pet who was hit by a car needs a look even without a scratch, for the reasons in our list of signs that can't wait.
Does My Dog Need Stitches?
Your dog may need stitches if a cut goes through the full thickness of the skin, gapes open, or sits somewhere that moves a lot, like a leg or the chest. Bites may be different, since they sometimes do better without being closed all the way.
Sealing a contaminated pocket shut is roughly how a cat makes an abscess, so with a bite we may flush it and leave part of it open, place a drain, or wait to close it until it's clean. Clean, fresh cuts from glass, a fence, or a sharp rock are the likeliest to be closed the same visit with sutures. A cut that's a day or two old can often still be closed, though some need cleaning and a few days of bandage changes first.
A cut paw pad is tough to stitch and gets walked on all day, so pad cuts often heal slowly and come with a bandage and some patience (our limping post has a quick paw check). An ear flap can bleed far out of proportion to the size of the cut, and every time your dog shakes his head, it opens back up. A dog with a tiny nick on his ear can turn himself into a lawn sprinkler manufactured by whoever made those elevators in The Shining. He will oscillate and he will do it next to your white couch. Hold gauze on both sides of the flap and come in.
What If My Pet Was Bitten by a Wild Animal?
If your pet tangled with a skunk, bat, raccoon, fox, or coyote, call us and the Larimer County Department of Health and Environment at (970) 498-6666, because rabies is a real concern here. In Larimer County it shows up most often in skunks and bats. A rabid bat was found in northeast Fort Collins as recently as this May.
Whether it happened on the Poudre Trail or on your back porch at 2 a.m., wear gloves before handling your pet, and wash the wound with running water for at least 10 minutes. If the wild animal is dead, don't touch it bare-handed or throw it away, because health officials may want to test it.
Colorado's exposure rules are written for wildlife, so a scuffle with a vaccinated neighbor dog usually doesn't trigger them. After contact with wildlife, a pet with documented rabies vaccination, even an overdue one, usually needs a booster within 96 hours and then 45 days of observation at home. Our doctors can give that booster here. Vaccine and exposure protocols can be complicated, but we can help walk you through them if needed. Suffice to say: Larimer County requires rabies vaccines for dogs and cats over four months old. Indoor cats need them too, because bats find their way inside more often than anyone would like to believe.
What to Tell Us When You Call About a Wound
Tell us what caused the wound, when it happened, where it is, whether it's still bleeding, and how your pet is breathing, walking, and eating. We'll also ask about your pet's rabies vaccine (and the other animal's, if you know it), any medications your pet takes, and anything you've put on the wound. You can even send pictures to hello@inkwell.vet (though, if it's big enough to see in pictures, it's big enough to be treated).
If another dog was involved, the most useful thing you can do, once everyone is safe, is trade phone numbers with the other owner. It feels awkward. It's less awkward than trying to track down "the guy in the Broncos beanie with the brindle dog" three days later, when we're asking about his dog's rabies vaccine.
What Happens When You Bring Your Pet In for a Wound?
A wound visit starts the way any emergency visit does, wherever you go: we make sure your pet is stable, hear what happened, examine them nose to tail, and talk through a plan before anything gets done. Dogs in a fight rarely stop at one bite; often we don't know the extent of the wounds until we sedate them and start clipping some fur away.
What we do next depends on the doctor and on how serious the wound is. A tolerant dog with a few scrapes may only need a pain injection and a clip and clean. For a real wound, an IV catheter and sedation are our default, because nobody wants their shoulder explored while they're awake. Sedation lowers the stress, lets us clean the wound properly, and makes the repair a lot more effective. Depending on what we find, the wound gets closed, gets a drain, or gets managed open with bandage changes over the next several days. (Laceration repairs are also when the doctor gets to sing Frank Sinatra, which your pet gets to sleep through and the rest of the team does not.)
Before anything starts, we'll put the cost of each option in writing, along with the rechecks and home care that come with it. You pick the plan that fits your pet and your week.
Nobody can tell from the phone call whether a bite needs a good cleaning, a few stitches, a drain, or an operating room. Plenty of wounds go home the same visit. When a bite has gone into the chest or belly, that's a job for a surgeon. We don't have a surgery suite, so we'll call the doctor at whichever hospital you choose and fill them in before you get there.
Caring for a Wound at Home Afterward
At home, the job is keeping the cone on, the wound dry, and the recheck appointments on the calendar. Most closed wounds take about two weeks to heal, which is usually when stitches or staples come out.
Dog saliva has a reputation as a disinfectant that it hasn't earned. The same kind of mouth that caused this whole thing is now volunteering to fix it, and a dedicated tongue can undo a repair in less time than it takes you to find the remote. So yes, the cone. Your dog will bump into door frames, struggle with the water bowl, and clear a path through the living room with the efficiency of a snowplow on College Avenue. None of it is a reason to take the cone off.
A drain looks like a short piece of soft rubber tubing poking out of the skin, and it's supposed to drip. It usually comes out within a few days to a week. Keep bandages dry (a produce bag over the foot works for trips outside), and call if one slips, gets wet, starts to smell, or the toes poking out of it look swollen.
Give every dose of the antibiotics, even once the wound looks healed – the bacteria don't pack up and leave when the scab shows up. Call us or your regular vet if the area gets redder, puffier, or hotter, if the discharge turns thick, cloudy, or smelly, if the incision opens, or if your pet stops eating or seems flat.
The Bite You Can Barely See Is Still Worth a Look
When a dog is bitten by another dog, there's usually more going on under the skin than on top, and it's easier to treat before it's had a few days to brew. Until you get here, keep pressure on it, keep the tongue off it, and get the other owner's phone number.
To get a wound looked at, call us at (970) 851-8751 so we know you're coming, fill out our intake form on the way, and head to our Fort Collins clinic during open hours.
