EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

One of my dogs got a small but deep horizontal cut on his rib cage Wednesday morning. Today (Saturday) it is pretty swollen and looking kind of nasty. The area around the cut is swollen to almost the size of my fist. I have been washing it with the water hose and then putting a lil Nu Stock on it.

Should I cut a little drain hole at the bottom of the swollen area. If so what should I use to make the incision? I guess I am going to start him on some amoxicillin.

What I use is , I mix power sulfur & petroleum jelly and put it on them. Hope this helps.

I'd hit him three days in a row with pennicillin then skip a day and start over Hydro therapy  (water hose)everyday if it's where he can lick it you can't really keep any medicine on it.You should tell a difference  in a day or so . By givin antibiotics, if he can't lick it Furo Zone is some of the best wound dressing there is . 

We had the same thing happen to one of our dogs. I made a 1/2 inch incision at the bottom of the swollen area/fliud sack and drained it. Then done hydro theropy every day even if he can lick the cut. Plus gave him pennicillin 3 days in a row, and skipped every other day after that. After doing all this with our dog Red. He was healed up and ready to go in about 2 or 3 weeks.

If a cut on the ribcage is swollen to the size of your fist it sounds like you definately have infection involved. PENICILIN or AMOXICILIN will be a good start but you need to make sure there is not any forein matter in there that is causing the infection,could be a small stick or even a small piece of tusk,IVE HAD IT HAPPEN. You definately dont want it to be fully closed either.

Do y'all use a razor, an exacto knife, or just a good ole sharp knife to make the incision?

What is the dosage for penicillin? Under the skin or in the muscle?

Amoxicillin should be soon as possiable with any deep cut. As for cutting to drain. I think you should be able to know the differance between the swollen and puss/infection. If its just swollen you could make the situation even worse. Just my 2 cents tho

I like to use a scalpal,clean and sanitary.make your incision at least an inch long running up and down and make it closer to the bottom of the swelling. Depending on the size of the dog u can give 3cc to 5cc for 3 or 4 days. give it in the muscle not under the skin and put it in slowly then massage it in for 5 seconds. I like to give it in the thigh up high. Once you get your incision made in the swollen lump,see what comes out,if its just blood and clear fluid and blood its just edema from trauma and will heal just fine with some hydrotherapy,if its green or puss filled,flush it out as best u can then squirt about 3cc of penicilin directly up in there without the needle on the syringe.

I used to to inject in the muscle but a Vet told me under the skin works just as good ! If that's Stryker  under the skin maybe safer! LOL I know he used to be a little touchy   :-\

SMZ 960's

Instead of making a new incision why not just open the original one up and let it drain from there? You may have to put a little pressure on the affected area to get it to drain. Then just keep it open and let it heal from the inside out. You can also mix up a saline solution and use that in a syringe to flush it out. If you have access to chlorhexadine you can use it to flush out the wound as well.

Update:

He was pretty swollen when I left for work last night.  When I got home it wasn't nearly as bad.  By the time I woke up the swelling had subsided quite a bit.

This cut started swelling almost instantly.  I believe he probably just took a good lick. 

I will continue to keep a close eye on him.

Thank you all

P.S.
Matt it is not Stryker.  Stryker was out of range in the other direction.

Ask the vet for some stuff called pink lady. You just paste it on the wound and it heals really fast. I got mine cut pretty bad a while back and my dad works for a vet office so he got it for me and he said they use it on everything.

NFS powder, works great for infection also, I use it.  The powder seems to stick to the cut better than a salve.